Announcing a course for Spring 2000

Speech Communication 415

Rhetoric and Media

Tom Benson

Jennifer Borda

This course will offer an intensive examination of the art of Alfred Hitchcock, one of the great film artists of the twentieth century.

Each week, the class will screen one or more of Hitchcock’s classic films. The class will then meet in small discussion sections for intensive analysis of the films and a series of related readings. Our discussions and readings will explore Hitchcock as one of Hollywood’s most successful popular entertainers, the "master of suspense"; as one of the great artists of the medium; and as a critic of American culture.

Among the films to be screened:

Psycho	The Man Who Knew Too Much	Shadow of a Doubt
Vertigo	Rear Window	The Lady Vanishes
Strangers on a Train	The Birds	The 39 Steps
The Wrong Man	Notorious	Suspicion
Rope	North by Northwest

The class will meet for screenings Tuesdays, 2:30 – 5:30 pm.

Small discussion sections will meet Thursday afternoons for 75-minute sessions

We expect this class to fill quickly. If you try to register and discover that the course is closed, you may put your name on a waiting list by sending e-mail to Jennifer Borda at jlb27@psu.edu

A draft of the course syllabus is available on this site. Click on the paw icon

For more information on the course, contact Professor Thomas W. Benson , whose web site is at