398. Experimental Courses
Rhetoric and Advanced Composition
This course explores ancient and contemporary concepts of rhetoric and composition. As individuals and collaborators, we will compose and deliver numerous arguments for a variety of audiences. Student work will culminate with the submission of a digital portfolio containing written, visual and (possibly) oral arguments.
Culture and New Media
New technologies of communication do more than shape how we produce and share information, ideas and images. They respond to and accelerate profound cultural changes. In this course, we will focus on the relationship between culture and "new media," a term that describes the convergence of formerly distinct media--cinema, television, print, photography, etc.--in a digital environment.
The ascendancy of new media is being felt across a broad spectrum of cultural institutions and practices--libraries, museums and universities; the authorship and ownership of intellectual property; licit and illicit forms of exchange; collective intelligence and participatory culture. Embedded within these and myriad other examples are questions to which we will strive to find answers: When my username lets me be anyone I want, what happens to our sense of Self? When you can connect to anyone, anywhere at any time, what happens to neighborhoods? To nations? How are Google and Wikipedia changing what it means to "know" something? In a world where borders are easy to miss and hard to police, who belongs? Who doesn't? Who decides?
We will cast our net wide in the pursuit of answers to these and other questions, consulting both "popular" and "academic" sources such as: visual media and video games, online fan communities and social networks, cultural studies, literary criticism, and feminist, queer and critical race theories. Students should expect to be part of a highly participatory learning community, as we will all be teachers and students of the material both in the classroom and in various online spaces, including a class blog and wiki.
Third Cinema
Peoples of color are the majority filmmakers of the world. Ironically, the aesthetically and politically diverse cinemas of Asia, Africa and Latin America continue to be a "minority" presence in film studies. This advanced film course focuses on Third Cinema theory--the only body of film theory that did not originate in Europe or North America. Originally tied to the political agendas of the decolonizing world, Third Cinema has since expanded to embrace indigenous, hybrid and transnational forms of cinematic production and political mobilization. What affinities exist between the cinemas of Black America and Black Brazil? What are the continuities and discontinuities between the popularity of Bollywood films and the "national popular" in New Latin American cinema? How have indigenous elites in the Philippines and Senegal set the political agendas of their respective vanguard cinemas? Through a mix of case studies and theoretical explication, this course will give advanced film students the tools to embark on original research on Third Cinema and the productive dialogues that may be opened up within and between "minority" communities.