ENG 381 - Film and New Media Studies

Black American Cinema
This course will provide a survey of Black Cinema in the United States from the silent period to the present. Charting the history of Black representation both in front of and behind the camera, beginning with the racist tropes that solidified a cinematic grammar in The Birth of a Nation, we will examine the “race films” of the 1920s and 30s, the fight for representation and opportunity during the Civil Rights era, and the continued work of Black artists throughout the 20th Century. We will highlight voices that call for change, directors who document violence and struggle, queer filmmakers who challenge the status quo, as well as artists who use their camera to celebrate everyday lives. To that end, we will explore the pioneering work of Oscar Micheaux and Zora Neale Hurston. We will analyze specific movements such as the L.A. Rebellion and Blaxploitation, including the films of Charles Burnett, Haile Gerima, Julie Dash, Gordon Parks, and Melvin Van Peebles. The explosive work of Spike Lee and John Singleton in the early 1990s will be discussed alongside the confrontational documentary films of William Greaves, Raoul Peck, Madeline Anderson, and Marlon Riggs. We will then turn to the 21st century to examine contemporary filmmakers, such as Ava DuVernay, Barry Jenkins, Dee Rees, Jordan Peele, Steve McQueen, RaMell Ross, Ryan Coogler, and more.

Cinemas of Rebellion
This course will survey a variety of national cinemas from roughly 1960 to the present, focusing particularly on artists who rebelled against the forces that defined and confined the possibilities of their work. Cinematic rebellion takes many forms. Some filmmakers produced films that openly critiqued their government. Some utilized formal techniques to challenge the canon. Others provided the space for once silenced voices and forgotten histories to be heard and seen on screen. Examining the landscape and our relationship to the soil, challenging the uses of and control over the land, struggling as filmmakers to tell their own stories and reconfigure the historical record-these are all acts of rebellion. The goal of this course will be to focus on the profound ways the environment has shaped these works, and how the filmmakers have engaged in the histories of that landscape. Topics may include: Indigenous filmmaking in Australia and New Zealand, First Nations and Native American Cinemas in Canada and the United States, Postcolonial African Cinema of the 1960s and 70s, Latin American movements such as Cinema Novo, South Korean anti-capitalist horror and genre films, The L.A. Rebellion of Black filmmakers in the United States, anti-fascist cinema and films about “The Southern Question” in Italy, Post-revolutionary Iranian Cinema, Taiwan New-Wave Cinema, and more.

History of Animation
This course will provide an overview of the history and methods of the animated cartoon and feature film. Animation - bringing images to life - takes many forms. Traditional cel animation, stop motion, and digital techniques are all used to help create the “illusion of life,” as Disney artists claimed during their Golden Age. Animated films, long considered mere entertainment for children, have tackled the issues of war and peace. This course will examine the popular and the underground, the mature as well as the entertaining. This course will look at the historical, social, political, cultural, and formal background of the last 130 years of animation, charting the rise of the artform from trick photography to the digital revolutions of the last thirty years. Some of the studios and artists we will examine are Disney, UPA, Studio Ghibli, Pixar, Laika, Winsor McCay, Lotte Reiniger, Mary Ellen Bute, Oskar Fischinger, Chuck Jones, Ray Harryhausen, Will Vinton, Brenda Chapman, Henry Selick, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Cristóbal León, Joaquin Cociña, Guillermo del Toro, and others.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): Two ENG courses at the 200 level or higher
Instructional Method: Conference-screening
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Notes:

Not all topics offered every year.
Review schedule of classes for availability.
Review descriptions for specific applicability to department requirements.
Prior experience with film and media studies preferred.

Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).