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Spring, 2002 |
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English/Cinema Studies 433 |
Rice 114, (440) 775-8574 |
This course is about how contemporary movies have "imagined" (there's a pun in there) history. One of our concerns will be to understand the different ways in which "history" can be narrated and what it means to imagine history in these various ways. History is an abstract concept, not identical with "the past" or "what happened back then"--it is the way we chose to order and organize our sense of the past. In all of these movies the issues of history are expressed through particular characters and situations, so one of the issues these movies address directly is what is the relation of history and the individual? How do different versions history affect our sense of what it means to be a person?
This course may raise some issues of exactly how to watch the movies, as our primary concern is not characters and their particular situations per se but how the whole of the movie narrative creates a visible verion of the relation of the individual to history.
This course differs from 200 and 300 level courses in that it asks the members of the class to take more than usual responsibility for the direction of the course. Rather than focusing on individual research projects, as traditional seminars do, this course asks you to absorb a lot of material and do a good deal of synthesis through discussion and reflection
I've created a structure by choosing
the movies and their order, but I hope the course will be an open-ended process
of inquiry. I have my own theories, of course, and I'll tell you
about them but I'll present such ideas only as part of the process of inquiry.
Schedule of Movies and Readings
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Date |
Movie
/Reading Readings available on ERes |
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Week
1 2/4 |
Robert Rosenstone
Louis
O. Mink
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"The
Use of History in the Movies " "Narrative
Form as Cognitive Instrument" "History
and the Novel" |
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Week
2 |
The
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance |
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Week
3 2/18 |
JFK
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Week
4 |
Malcom X Hoffa Tucker: The Man and his Dream |
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Week
5 3/4 |
Forrest
Gump |
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Week
6 3/11 |
Mephisto
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Week
7 3/18 |
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Week
8 3/25 |
Break
Week |
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Week
9 4/1 |
Avalon |
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Week
10 4/8 |
The
Way We Were |
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Week
11 4/15 |
American
Graffiti |
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Week
12 4/22 |
San
Kofa |
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Week
13 4/29 |
Flesh
and Blood |
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Week
14 5/8 |
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1) I assume valuable things happen in class sessions. I take attendance; I expect you to keep track of your attendance too, because "I didn't realize I'd missed that many classes" is not an excuse. You get two unexcused absences, absences other than illness or family emergency . "I had a paper due for another course, my fish was depressed, I don't do Wednesdays, I'm in a production of The Sunshine Boys and we had rehearsal" are not excusable absences.
2) You have to participate in the class. Participation doesn't mean talking a lot, it means being engaged in the interchange among the members of the class: asking good questions, responding to other people's questions, thinking before you talk. Talking in groups such as a class is a skill, every bit as much as writing is. Its a skill worth having, because in fact a lot of work in all institutions gets done in that way. Being able to talk effectively in a group is, as they say, an important "self-empowerment." I know that a number of people have trouble speaking up in class. You should feel as free to consult me on strategies and methods for doing that as you'd to consult me about your writing.
Academic
or emergency incompletes are yours to take if you want, as long as you are
in good standing in the course. You don't need to tell me the story, unless
you want to; I trust that you wouldn't take an incomplete without a good reason.
"Good Standing" means that you have completed all the work assigned
for the first module and at least some of the work for the second.
The
Honor Code
It
should go without saying that I expect you to hand in your own work.
But in this course I expect you to read each others writing and talk to each
other about your ideas. Having a real intellectual life does not mean hiding
from other people's thoughts in hopes of staying "original" but
allowiing oneself to respond imaginatively and creatively to the influence
of other people's ideas. Thus obvious
cheating--buying papers off the net, using somebody else's essay from another
course, lifting unacknowledged sections from other people's writing--is plagarism.
You simply can't learn anything from this sort of thing, so it violates the
whole point of education. If in discussions with other people in the course
or in the readings you do for the course or in other contexts some influences
your thinking to an unusual degree, you should acknowledge them.
Each week I'd like to have two members of the class present the films for that week. By presentation I mean offer the group a perspective from which to look at the movies and questions you think we should discuss. This includes explaining how and why you came to this perspective and these questions. While the issue of how the movie imagines history is always the central question of the course, each movie will, I think, require particular questions of its own as ways of getting to get to this larger issue. Cinematography, style, acting, as well as issues of narrative, are all possible entry ways to the movies. Presentations should also seek to be comparative--that is, we should feel free to use movies we've seen as the matrix for discussing how succeeding movies deal with the same issues.
People can volunteer in pairs or singley for a particular week. In the past it has proved easiest to start by discussing one movie, then moving on to the other, though that might be different this year; exact format I leave up to you. The initial presentation should last no more than 10 minutes, though presumably the presenters may want to makes suggestions and help guide discussion as we move along.
Doing one of these
presentations is an important and serious part of the course.
You actually have think about what you are going to do, practice it and
deliever the presentation in an interesting way. No mumbling, shuffling
papers ('Oh wait, I had it here somewhere.") In other words, when you
do this presentation, don't behave like a student.
Act like an adult talking to other adults about something you have all agreed
to take seriously. If a presentation
is really bad, I will stop it.
Short
Assignments
Each
week two people will also write essays on the movies for that week. These
essays will be reflective, based on the discussions we've had. The idea
here is that as we move on to new movies and new topics we'll also have an
on-going commentary on where we have been.
These essays should reflect on the past week in the context of the course
as a whole. The essays are due, via listserve on Mondays. They
should be about 1500 words.
A
4500 word essay on a topic of your choice. The essay will be developed over
the course of the semester in five stages. I am open to proposals for
different kinds of final projects, though they will require a proposal, a
progress report, and a final report/reflection on the project. The assignment
are on line on this course's web pages.
#1. A 750--900 word essay explaining why you’re taking the course and what specifically you want to get out of it.#2. Midterm essay, 2000 words. This essay will take the form of a reflection on what we have done in the first half of the semester. Due the week before Spring Break#3 Proposal. A brief 500 word explanation of what you think you want to write about and why you think this is important. due week 11#4 First Draft. Due week 13. I'll read and comment on this draft. It should be as complete as possible, but I don't expect a "finished"product.#5 Final Draft. Due at the end of Finals.
The
comments on your writing will be, as one former student put it, "ambiguous."
I don't do much "this is good, that's bad" commenting. The comments
I make will be directed to making you think about what you're writing about,
raising issues you may want to consider in revising, or writing about in the
next prep essay. For specific advice on how to revise, what to do with a particular
argument, etc., we should set up a conference.
You
won't receive any grades over the course of the semester. This isn't because
the grade is unimportant (if it was unimportant we wouldn't give it, would
we?) but because the work in the course is part of a process, rather than
a sequence of discrete units. If I am trying to encourage you to use your
writing to be experimental and speculative, leading to your final essay, it
makes little sense to grade it along the way. But if you want a sense of how
you're doing, you should feel free to come and speak to me about your work.
I will be able to tell you if you are making what I see as reasonable progress,
what things you may want to work on, what things you seem to be doing best.
I won't be able to be extremely precise about a grade equivelent, however.
On a rough scale, though, I would say that if you are doing intelligent analysis
of the works we consider and are able to state your own views clearly, that
is C- to C+ work. If you are able to interpret the material we are working
with, discuss not only what is "said" but what its significance
might be, you would be in the B- to B range. If in addition you can demonstrate
a capacity for self-reflective critical work (thinking about your own way
of thinking and what it means to think as you do) you would be in the B+ to
A range. So these are the kinds of mental activity you will be doing in the
course: analysis & response, interpretation, and self-reflection.