NIGHT SCHOOL
Night School Bar is a community learning program and a neighborhood bar that offers high-quality, sliding-scale classes in the arts and humanities for curious adults.
Here are some of my recent and representative courses:
ENCHANTMENT & NOSTALGIA IN THEORY & FILM
Night School Bar, SPRING 2026
Why are so many beloved childhood films about lost worlds, vanishing creatures, and the transient wonders of youth? If disenchantment names a world stripped of magic, then nostalgia names our longing for what has been lost, or perhaps what never was.
Fantasy films transport us into encounters with myth, loss, childhood, temporality, and imagination. They enchant in ways both restorative and disillusioning. And they offer a critical lens to consider how enchantment persists within a secular age.
We will explore the concepts of enchantment and nostalgia through a conversation between film and theory. Drawing from thinkers such as Charles Taylor, Max Weber, Sylvia Wynter, Walter Benjamin, and Svetlana Boym, we will consider how modern subjects inhabit what Taylor calls the “immanent frame,” and why fantasy so often stages a return to porous worlds of myth and wonder. This is a four-week course that alternates between theory-focused sessions based on readings and classes that feature full-length film screenings followed by discussion.
STORY TO FILM ADAPTATION: “STORY OF YOUR LIFE” TO ARRIVAL (Night School Bar, Spring 2025)
From the precise, meditative prose of Ted Chiang’s short novella “Story of Your Life” to the sweeping landscapes and tender contemplations of Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, this course explores what happens when a conceptual science fiction narrative—one already concerned with translation—is itself translated from page to screen. At the heart of both versions lies a deceptively simple question: What if learning a new language could reshape our experience of reality? But wrapped around that question are others about memory, grief, choice, and the limits and horizons of human understanding.
The challenge of adaptation mirrors the aliens’ challenge to human communication: how do you translate a way of thinking into an entirely different medium? As we trace this transformation, we’ll consider the unique affordances and constraints of literature and film, the shifting demands of genre, and what’s gained or lost when intimate philosophical inquiry becomes cinematic spectacle. Along the way, we’ll ask what this adaptation reveals about how we tell stories and why some stories demand to be told again, differently.
This three-week course will involve at-home readings, in-person discussions, and one in-person screening. In week one, we’ll discuss the novella in the context of its form (short story) and genre (science fiction). In week two, we’ll screen and analyze the film. In week three, we’ll turn to a few key works of adaptation theory to help frame what we’ve learned through a critical lens.
NSB FILM SCHOOL: EAT THE RICH
Night School Bar, Summer 2025
From The Menu to Triangle of Sadness to Glass Onion, this course explores the cinematic boom in anti-elite storytelling that surged in 2022 and beyond. Against the backdrop of rising class consciousness and cultural resentment toward extreme wealth, we ask: What work do these films do? Can a medium as costly and exclusive as film meaningfully critique capitalism? And what does it feel like to watch these stories now, in 2025?
Over three weeks, we'll screen and discuss three major films, supplemented by optional readings and related media.
CULTS IN FILM & THEORY(Night School Bar, Spring 2025)
What defines a cult—and how do we know if we’re in one? This four-week, co-taught course explores cults as complex social formations that blur the lines between community, control, belief, and manipulation. Through films like Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Master, alongside readings from religious studies, psychoanalysis, and media theory, we’ll examine the emotional, ideological, and cinematic forces that shape cult dynamics.
Classes alternate between discussions of theory and full film screenings, inviting participants to question media’s role in understanding these complex gatherings.
SURVEILLANCE CINEMA(Night School Bar, Spring 2025)
From Rear Window to Citizenfour, this course examines how American film has reflected—and shaped—our anxieties about being watched. As surveillance becomes both ubiquitous and participatory in everyday life, we ask: What power dynamics underlie the gaze? What does it mean to be legible to systems of control? And how does cinema both expose and reproduce surveillance culture?
Over three weeks, we’ll screen three films that span genres and decades, each followed by guided discussion and supplemented by optional readings and related media.
WITCHES (Night School Bar, Fall 2024)
From The Craft to The Love Witch to The VVitch, witches in film have cast long shadows—and bright spells—on our cultural imagination. This three-week course dives into how cinematic witches have reflected, resisted, and redefined the norms of their time. We'll trace the witch’s transformation from persecuted outsider to feminist icon, exploring how gender, power, sexuality, and difference play out on screen.
Each in-person session includes a film screening, a short introductory talk, and a lively guided discussion. Optional readings and recommended viewings will deepen your engagement with the material—and the magic. Come for the witchcraft, stay for the critical conversation (and cocktails).
FEMBOTS, AI, AND EMOTIONAL LABOR(Night School Bar, Fall 2024)
Why are our virtual assistants so often coded female? What fantasies—and fears—do fembots bring to life? From Her to Ex Machina to M3GAN, this course examines how film has shaped our collective imagination about AI, gender, and the emotional labor we expect from machines. As artificial intelligence grows more intimate, cinema helps us unpack the gendered dynamics embedded in our designs.
Over three weeks, we’ll screen three films exploring the feminization of AI, each followed by guided discussion and supplemented by optional readings and media theory.
THE FILMS OF GRETA GERWIG(Night School Bar, Summer 2024)
From Lady Bird to Little Women to Barbie, Greta Gerwig has redefined coming-of-age stories, feminist adaptation, and blockbuster filmmaking. This course traces Gerwig’s evolution as a director through her three feature films, exploring how she blends wit, vulnerability, and sharp cultural critique.
Over three weeks, we’ll screen and discuss each film in person, with an optional preliminary session dedicated to critical and theoretical readings that frame Gerwig’s cinematic vision. Each screening will include a brief introduction and a post-film discussion
THE FILMS OF BONG JOON-HO (Night School Bar, Fall 2023)
From Snowpiercer to Parasite, Bong Joon-ho has mastered the art of blending genre with biting social critique. This three-week film course explores how Bong’s darkly comic, visually stunning films have become cornerstones of contemporary anti-capitalist cinema—captivating audiences even as they challenge the very systems those audiences live within.
We’ll trace Bong’s evolution as a director by screening three of his most influential works in chronological order, examining how his style sharpens and his satire deepens over time. Each session includes a short introductory talk, a full film screening, and an hour-long discussion.
SPECULATIVE FUTURES: FICTION, THEORY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE (Night School Bar, Summer 2023)
Is science fiction just escapism—or a blueprint for change? This course explores speculative fiction as a tool for imagining more just and equitable futures. Through works by Ursula K. Le Guin, Ted Chiang, Octavia Butler, and others, we examine how radical storytelling challenges dominant narratives about race, gender, class, and power.
Over five weeks, we’ll pair fiction with key texts from Indigenous and Afro-Futurism, environmental economics, and futurology, asking how speculative media can disrupt systems of oppression—and help us reclaim our capacity to dream.
