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Poslední úprava: NOWELL (19.02.2019)
This course offers students transferable insights into the ways topicality has shaped the production, content, and themes of American motion pictures of the last fifty years, focusing on six of Hollywood’s most high-profile topical production trends of the last forty years: the Blaxploitation cycle of the early-to-mid 1970s, the women-in-danger films of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the New Cold War Cinema of the mid-late 1980s, Gen-X cinema of the mid-1990s, the Post-9/11 cinema of the mid-to-late 2000s, and the cinema of financial crisis of the 2010s. |
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Poslední úprava: NOWELL (25.01.2019)
The goals of Key Trends in American Film are to facilitate students’ deeper understanding of the relationships that exist between, on the one hand, the content and themes of American mainstream cinema, and, on the other hand, certain prominent social, cultural, political discourses circulating the public (and private) sphere. In doing so, the course aims to familiarize students with important and transferable critical tools, frameworks, approaches, and skills that will serve to deepen their capacity to engage with, and to read, audiovisual texts critically both on, and hopefully outside of, the course. Key Trends in American Cinema aims to enable students to appreciate that the interplay between texts and contexts is more than a simple "sign of the times" but is characterized by complex processes of mediation, selection, and interpretation at the levels of production, promotion, and reception. By the end of the course, students will be expected to posses: the critical abilities to produce insightful analysis of film texts; the skills necessary to conduct sound contextual analysis; the demonstrable capacity to synthesize original ideas in a lucid and coherent manner, both verbally and in writing; a solid understanding of the complex social, cultural, historical, and political relationships that have shaped important aspects of American cinematic output (and by implication different forms of audiovisual media produced both inside and outside of the US); and solid understanding of debates circulating the case-studies that comprise the course. |
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Poslední úprava: NOWELL (25.01.2019)
Students are required to submit three equally weighted circa 1500-word essays for this course. Failure to submit any of these papers will result in the award of a 0 and the student failing the course. The overall grade for this course is derived from the average score of the three papers. A student may pass this course if s/he narrowly fails to score a passing grade for one paper but nevertheless scores a higher grade on another paper. |
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Poslední úprava: NOWELL (28.01.2019)
Sudents are expected actively to contribute to seminar discussions, which will center on the mandatory film screenings, the mandatory readings, and critical analyses thereof. Accordingly, students are required to study all of the relevant set readings before each class. All of the readings are available in PDF form to download from the SIS course website. Students are advised to bring to class hard copies of the relevant readings as use of electronic devices will not be permitted during seminars. Students are also required to view a topic-relevant film at home as part of their preparations for each session; these films will provide a useful reference point when students study the preparatory readings and will usually also be discussed in class.
Echart, Pablo, and Pablo Castrillo. "Fanancial Darwinsim in Recent American Films", in Constantin Parvulescu (ed.) Global Finance on Screen: From Wall Street to Side Street (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 56-67. Kellner, Douglas. "Hollywood Critiques of the Bush-Cheney Regime: From Thrillers to Fantasty and Satire", in Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush-Cheney Era (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 163-199. Kraszewski, Jan. "Recontextualizing the Historical Reception of Blaxploitation: Articulations of Class, Black Nationalism, and Anxiety in the Genre’s Advertisements", The Velvet Light Trap 50 (Fall 2002),pp. 48-61. Lyons, Charles. "Murder of Women in Not Erotic: Feminists against Dressed to Kill (1980)", in The New Censors: Movies and the Culture Wars (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), pp. 53-80. Oake, Jonathon I."Reality Bites and Generation X as Spectator", The Velvet Light Trap, No. 53, (Spring 2004), pp. 83-97. Prince, Stephen. "Brave Homelands and Evil Empires", in Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Film (New York: Praeger, 1992), pp. 49-80. Quinne Eithne, and Peter Kramer. "Blaxploitation", in Linda Ruth Williams and Michael Hammond (eds.), Contemporary American Cinema (New York: Open University Press, 2006), pp. 184-185, 188-198.
Wood, Robin. "Returning the Look: Eyes of a Stranger", in Gregory A. Waller (ed.), American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), pp. 79-85.
Audiovisual Company Men, The (2010) Dark Knight, The (2008) Dressed to Kill (1980) Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) Mallrats (1995) Money Monster (2016) Reality Bites (1984) Rocky IV (1984) Russkies (1987) Superfly (1972) Taken (2008) |
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Poslední úprava: NOWELL (25.01.2019)
Key Trends in American Film is based around a series of double sessions comprising a film screnning, lecture/seminar, and sometimes exercises. Students are expected to come to each session having both viewed a home screening and studied the supplied readings, both in relation to preparatory questions provided in advance (see syllabus). In addition to micro-lectures integrated into each session, students are encouraged actively to participate by contributing their insights on the readings, example films, and general topics. Such an approach is intended to place an accent on student-centered learning, and facilitate independent evaluation and application of the various concepts, historiography, and analytical positions introduced in each session - something which will be formally assessed by the three essays set for this course. Generally speaking, the course encourages students to take up more nuanced and pragmatic positions to the relationships between these two phenomena than those posited by the preeminent socio-symptomatic and ideological analyses, both of which have been guilty of reducing the commercial and creative forces behind films to mere ciphers of the irresistible force of the zeitgeist. Rather than considering films to be simply signs of the times or unwitting witnesses to the mores and values of American society, this course invites students to think about how the American film industry uses and appropriates socio-political discourses in a rational and strategic fashion in order to make its products attractive and relevant to targeted audiences. |
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Poslední úprava: NOWELL (25.01.2019)
Paper I Deadline: 12:00 Midday CET Friday 22 March 2019. Value: One third of Final Grade Students are to submit a circa 1500-word essay based on a topic introduced in sessions 1-2.
Paper II Deadline: 12:00 Midday CET Friday 19 April 2019. Value: One third of Final Grade Students are to submit a circa 1500-word essay on a topic introduced in sessions 3 and 4.
Paper III Deadline: 12:00 Midday CET Friday 17 May 2019. Value: One third of Final Grade Students are to submit a circa 1500-word essay on a topic introduced in sessions 5-6.
Essays are to be submitted in PDF or word format to richard_nowell@hotmail.com. Confirmation of receipt will always be sent shortly one essay has been received; if this has not been received within 12 hours, students should assume that an essay has not been received and are advised to either resend the essay or contact me to see if there is another reason why no receipt has been issued.
Penalties for Late Submission of Work Up to 24 hours after the due date - 5 marks out of 100 deducted Between 24 and 48 after the due to date - 10 marks out of 100 deducted Between 48 and 72 hours after the due date - 15 marks out of 100 deducted Between 72 and 96 hours after the due date - 20 marks out of 100 deducted More than 96 hours after due date - all marks deducted
Tutorials All students are welcome to arrange one-on-one tutorials to discuss assignments and/or any issues arising from the course. Meetings can be arranged by email and can take place at a location and time of mutual convenience.
Feedback Each student will be emailed individually with detailed personal feedback on his or her mid-term paper and final paper. This feedback is designed to be constructive so will spotlight strengths and any possible shortcomings.
Plagiarism Information It is the duty of every student to ensure that s/he has familiarized him- or herself with the following details pertaining to plagiarism. They are included in English and Czech. (A) Any use of quoted texts in seminar papers and theses must be acknowledged. Such use must meet the following conditions: (1) the beginning and end of the quoted passage must be shown with quotation marks; (2) when quoting from periodicals or books, the name(s) of author(s), book or article titles, the year of publication, and page from which the passage is quoted must all be stated in footnotes or endnotes; (3) internet sourcing must include a full web address where the text can be found as well as the date the web page was visited by the author. (B) In case the use of any texts other than those written by the author is established without proper acknowledgement as defined in (A), the paper or thesis will be deemed plagiarized and handed over to the Disciplinary Commission of the Faculty of Social Sciences. (A) Použití vešker.ch citovan.ch textů v seminárních a kvalifikačních pracích musí splňovat tyto podmínky: (1) začátek a konec citované pasáže musí b.t opatřeny uvozovkami; (2) citujeme-li z periodik či knih, je nutno uvést - zpravidla v poznámce pod čarou nebo vysvětlivce - autora, název díla, rok vydání a stránku, z níž je citováno; (3) v případě citací z internetov.ch zdrojů je nutno uvést full internetovou adresu, na níž lze citovan. text dohledat, a datum návštěvy internetové stránky. (B) Pokud budou v uveden.ch pracích zjištěny přejaté texty bez v.še uveden.ch náležitostí, bude práce považována za plagiát a předána Disciplinární komisi FSV UK.
Grading and Evaluation: Grades from A-F will be awarded to all studetnts registered in the faculty of social-sciences or in other faculties using this system, based on the following criteria:
Students registered with faculties using the Czech 1-4 grading system, will be awarded grades based on this system (see below)
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