Master of Arts in Cinema and Media Studies

Our two-year master's program prepares students for advanced work in Cinema and Media Studies, or for careers in teaching at the elementary, secondary, or junior college levels. In addition, M.A. students will emerge with:

) an interdisciplinary understanding of the field from a humanistic perspective,
) awareness of the relationship between their scholarly practice and the communities in which we live,
) basic reading knowledge in at least one language other than English,
) the ability to assess effective pedagogical techniques in the field.
The faculty in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies have particular strengths in world cinema, silent-era film, documentary cinema, Chinese cinemas, South Asian cinemas, media technologies, television studies, new media, and digital studies.
There are several areas of research in which the Department's faculty and programs in South Asian languages are particularly well known, including the following: Sanskrit literature and language, Middle Indo-Aryan languages and literatures, Indian religion, Buddhist studies, epigraphy, paleography, and the history of Indic writing systems, Hindi and Indo-Aryan linguistics, medieval devotional texts and religion, comparative mythology, hagiography, and the description of Indian gods and goddesses throughout the course of South Asian history. The Department of Asian Languages and Literature is the home of the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project, a joint enterprise of the University of Washington and the British Library, which has attracted international attention for its research into the language and texts of the earliest surviving written materials of the entire Buddhist tradition.

MA applicants: 1-2 pages describing your academic background, reasons for attending graduate school, and potential research interest. Be sure to address why our particular program is right for you and how you see our program benefitting your future, including how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within the fields of cinema and media studies (or have already).
Three letters of recommendation referring to competence in projected fields of study, writing ability, potential to excel in graduate study, and teaching ability (our graduate students are funded through teaching assistant positions).

Unofficial University Transcripts.
Critical writing sample in English (double-spaced, 12-point font preferred) :
MA applicants should submit a 10-15 page sample.
International applicants: TOEFLiBT or IELTS scores. Applicants should ask Educational Testing Service (ETS) to send official TOEFLiBT scores to the University of Washington, institution code 4854. If you are interested in a Teaching Assistantship, spoken English proficiency MUST be met with a score of at least 26 on the speaking portion of TOEFLiBT or at least 7.0 on the speaking section of the IELTS.