This course uses film to explore issues in material culture and design. We examine how costume, makeup, architecture, furnishings, and materials convey information as to character, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and nationalism. We view a mix of musicals, dramas, westerns, film noir, animated features, and TV programs over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st for the ways in which representations of reality reinforce cultural narratives and subtly but powerfully communicate ideology. The construction of the office, the home, the city, and by extension the self and the world are some of the themes examined. Readings come from texts on material culture and design as well as from film theory and cultural studies more generally. The course is structured as a seminar with class participation essential. Students will be required to watch at least one feature-length movie—and sometimes two—as part of weekly class preparation. The syllabus is open to films from all parts of the world.