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Undergraduate Film And Visual Culture 2014-2015

FS1006: INTRODUCTION TO FILM AND THE CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE

15 credits

Level 1

First Term

This course offers an introduction to the language and practice of formal film analysis. Each week we will explore a different element of film form and analyze the ways in which it shapes the moving image.This course invites students to think about formal elements within and across a wide range of genres, styles, historical moments, and national contexts. By the end of this course, the successful FS1006 student will be able to recognize and communicate the ways in which meaning is made in cinema.

FS1506: INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL CULTURE

15 credits

Level 1

Second Term

What is Visual Culture? Over the last twenty years, the visual landscape has become digital, virtual, viral, and global. A vibrant cross-section of scholars and practitioners from Art History, Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, and Film Studies have responded, not only engaging contemporary image production and consumption, but also the foundations of visual knowledge: What is an image? What is vision? How and why do we look, gaze, and spectate? From the nomadic pathways of the digital archive to the embodied look that looks back, this course will introduce students to the key concepts that shape this fluid field.

FS2003: CINEMA AND MODERNITY

30 credits

Level 2

First Term

The first half of a film history sequence at the second year level, Cinema & Modernity focuses on crucial moments, concepts and cinematic works from the period 1895 to 1945. Students will be marked according to a mid-term essay, a final exam, short assignments on Blackboard, and participation and attendance in lectures and tutorials. 

FS2506: CINEMA AND REVOLUTION

30 credits

Level 2

Second Term

The second half of a film history sequence at the second year level, Cinema & Revolution focuses on crucial moments, concepts and cinematic works from the period between 1945 and the present. Students will be marked according to a mid-term essay, a final exam, short assignments on Blackboard, and participation and attendance in lectures and tutorials. 

FS30GB: PANOPTIC DIGITAL CULTURE A

30 credits

Level 3

First Term

This course will explore the role of panoptic observation within film and the arts, and in contemporary society and trace its historical roots.  It will examine the way in which our society has embraced a public surveillance application of CCTV and web cam culture, augmented by digital cameras, the mobile phone camera and use of home web cams.

FS30GG: TRAPPED ON FILM: THE HERO AND THE CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE A

30 credits

Level 3

First Term

The course will invite comparisons between key critical texts and themes which focus on variants of entrapment, as presented in a range of feature films. Film adaptation, analysing narrative form and constructions of place and the production of space will inform our investigations, in addition to considering the linkage between films and their social and historical contexts within popular culture.

FS30MC: GLOBAL SILENT CINEMA A

30 credits

Level 3

First Term

This course will introduce students to the eccentricities and complexities of cinema's first three decades: from Japanese Benshi narration to Russian melodrama, from ethnographic expedition films to abstract animations. Each week, we will be guided by a different concept (eg. language, narrative, sex/voyeurism, the archive, comedy, etc.) and a new constellation of questions. This course will conclude by making some connections between the user-oriented paradigms of early cinema and those that give shape to contemporary digital media.

FS30ML: COMIC CINEMAS A

30 credits

Level 3

First Term

The course aims to provide in-depth knowledge of essential genres, styles and forms in film history through the particular lens of comedy. Students will be introduced to general theories of comedy, which will be linked to close analysis of individual films from several national cinemas and numerous auteurs and actors. Each week will be organised around a comic theme with a theoretical reading and pertinent examples discussed in the first session and a major film work, with additional reading, analysed in the second. Students will be marked according to two essays, participation and attendance, and weekly Blackboard posts.

FS3520: TOPIC IN CONTEMPORARY FILM AND VISUAL CULTURE A

30 credits

Level 3

Second Term

The Visual Culture of Science: Imaging the Body in-between Art and Medicine

This course offers as an introduction to what is known as visual culture of science and its relationship with the body in the Western world. It provides students with a critical understanding of issues related to the human body and its status in modern and contemporary society, with particular regard to the representation, production and display of still and moving images/visualizations of the body in between art and medicine.

FS35IB: ON DOCUMENTARY: HISTORY, THEORY AND PRACTICE

30 credits

Level 3

Second Term

This course will allow students to engage in documentary production by putting into practice methodologies they have studied through a series of seminar discussions, workshops and screenings. Students will research two topics (one assessed and one non-assessed) and work in teams to film them and utilize the Media Lab's facilities to complete the projects through post-production.

FS35MG: LABOUR, LEISURE AND THE MOVING IMAGE A

30 credits

Level 3

Second Term

Analysing the moving image's relationship to industrialism, leisure time, consumerism, post-Fordism and many other issues, the course will link a diverse group of visual works to important historical and theoretical trends in the work and free time of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Each week will be organised around an overarching theme (work, strike, automation, the idle rich etc.), pairing important texts in the history and theory of labour with relevant film works and analysis. Students will be marked according to two essays, participation and attendance, presentations and weekly online contributions.

FS40GB: PANOPTIC DIGITAL CULTURE B

30 credits

Level 4

First Term

This course will explore the role of panoptic observation within film and the arts, and in contemporary society and trace its historical roots.  It will examine the way in which our society has embraced a public surveillance application of CCTV and web cam culture, augmented by digital cameras, the mobile phone camera and use of home web cams.

FS40GG: TRAPPED ON FILM: THE HERO AND THE CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE B

30 credits

Level 4

First Term

The course will invite comparisons between key critical texts and themes which focus on variants of entrapment, as presented in a range of feature films. Film adaptation, analysing narrative form and constructions of place and the production of space will inform our investigations, in addition to considering the linkage between films and their social and historical contexts within popular culture.

FS40MC: GLOBAL SILENT CINEMA B

30 credits

Level 4

First Term

This course will introduce students to the eccentricities and complexities of cinema's first three decades: from Japanese Benshi narration to Russian melodrama, from ethnographic expedition films to abstract animations. Each week, we will be guided by a different concept (eg. language, narrative, sex/voyeurism, the archive, comedy, etc.) and a new constellation of questions. This course will conclude by making some connections between the user-oriented paradigms of early cinema and those that give shape to contemporary digital media.

FS40ML: COMIC CINEMAS B

30 credits

Level 4

First Term

The course aims to provide in-depth knowledge of essential genres, styles and forms in film history through the particular lens of comedy. Students will be introduced to general theories of comedy, which will be linked to close analysis of individual films from several national cinemas and numerous auteurs and actors. Each week will be organised around a comic theme with a theoretical reading and pertinent examples discussed in the first session and a major film work, with additional reading, analysed in the second. Students will be marked according to two essays, participation and attendance, and weekly Blackboard posts.

FS4506: DISSERTATION IN FILM & VISUAL CULTURE

30 credits

Level 4

Second Term

This course will provide students with guidance on writing a dissertation on a topic approved by the programme co-ordinator for the Head of School.

FS4520: TOPIC IN CONTEMPORARY FILM AND VISUAL CULTURE B

30 credits

Level 4

Second Term

The Visual Culture of Science: Imaging the Body in-between Art and Medicine

This course offers as an introduction to what is known as visual culture of science and its relationship with the body in the Western world. It provides students with a critical understanding of issues related to the human body and its status in modern and contemporary society, with particular regard to the representation, production and display of still and moving images/visualizations of the body in between art and medicine

FS45MG: LABOUR, LEISURE AND THE MOVING IMAGE B

30 credits

Level 4

Second Term

Analysing the moving image's relationship to industrialism, leisure time, consumerism, post-Fordism and many other issues, the course will link a diverse group of visual works to important historical and theoretical trends in the work and free time of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Each week will be organised around an overarching theme (work, strike, automation, the idle rich etc.), pairing important texts in the history and theory of labour with relevant film works and analysis. Students will be marked according to two essays, participation and attendance, presentations and weekly online contributions.

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