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DESMA 8

Media Histories

Lecture, three hours; outside study, 12 hours. Overview of optical media and aesthetic movements covering past two centuries: photography and industrialization/Romanticism (1850 to 1900), cinema and modernism (1900 to 1950), television and postmodernism (1950 to 2000), and digital media and unimodernism (2000 to 2050). How such movements can inform generative work and how understanding these media becomes essential in the emerging era of digital humanities. P/NP or letter grading.

Course statistics

Predicted GPA
3.90
n = 189 · 3 terms · ± 0.039
A range
93%
of letter grades
Taken P/NP
1%
100% of those passed
D / F / W
0.0%
incl. withdrawals

Sections in Fall 2026

Not offered in Fall 2026.

Enrollment history

Final enrollment per term, averaged across that term's sections. Four years deep, summer excluded. Per-section live curves are on each section page.

  • 7722W
  • 5324W
  • 6125W
Enrolment by term: 22W 77, 24W 53, 25W 61
Peak 77 Most recent 61 in 25W 3 terms on record

Grade distribution

  • A+ 20 · 10.5%
  • A 140 · 73.3%
  • A- 16 · 8.4%
  • B+ 4 · 2.1%
  • B 6 · 3.1%
  • B- 1 · 0.5%
  • C 1 · 0.5%
  • C- 1 · 0.5%
  • P 2 · 1.0%

Grey bars are non-letter outcomes — P/NP, S/U, incompletes. They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.

By instructor

Instructor Predicted Raw n Terms A range
LUNENFELD, PETER B 3.90 3.90 136 2 93%
O GRADY, DAVID K 3.90 3.90 53 1 94%

“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department — so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.

By term