Module description
This module introduces students to selected major critical debates and paradigms that underpin the discipline of Film Studies. The module follows on logically from 'Introduction to Film Studies: Forms', which is taught in Semester 1 of the first year of the Film Studies undergraduate curriculum. 'Forms' is mainly concerned with questions of form, style, and technique in cinema. 'Critical Debates' looks at cinema through key political, philosophical and institutional debates that have marked its evolution. The key critical debates and paradigms examined in the module include textuality (the ways in which the idea of the film text has been elaborated and studied in the discipline), representation (including categories of difference as represented, misrepresented, and/or contested in cinema), and reception (how cinema is received by spectators and audiences). These provide a solid grounding for further and more advanced study in future years. Students will be introduced to major critical and theoretical discussions of cinema in relationship to topics such as but not limited to: realism, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, genre, authorship, ideology, and film canons.
Assessment details
- Essay (1000 words) 30%
- Participation 10%
- Examination (2 hours) 60%
Educational aims & objectives
This module aims to introduce students to the long - standing and major critical debates that have underpinned academic Film Studies since its establishment in the 1960s. Some of these debates are ones that have influenced the development and methodologies of other disciplines in the Humanities. In this sense, their vocabularies, agendas, and intellectual histories are not specific to Film Studies, which is a strength: students will come to understand in broad terms the significance of these debates in the Humanities in general, as well as how they have led to new fields of inquiry and even disciplines themselves. At the same time, these debates have played a crucial role in the development of Film Studies itself, which in some cases has been a leading force in establishing the terms and shifts of them. The module thus emphasizes the particular inflections of these debates in Film Studies, providing a solid grounding for further and more advanced study of them in future years. As such, the module is an essential building block of the BA for all students and must be taught in the Lent term of the first year, following on logically from Research and Scholarship in film Studies in the Michaelmas term. Critical Debates in Film Studies is organised around three core concepts - Textuality, Representation, and Reception - which serve as overarching paradigms for key critical and theoretical debates. Textuality considers the ways in which the idea of the film text has been elaborated and studied in the discipline. Representation includes under its rubric the various and increasingly complex categories of difference as represented, misrepresented, and/or contested in cinema, as well as the stakes involved in positioning oneself among them. Reception deals with the important ways in which (and the theories of how) cinema is received by spectators and audiences, alongside continuing debates concerning the effects that texts have on spectators and that audiences have on texts.
Learning outcomes
By they end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practical skills appropriate to a level 4 modules and in particular will be able to: - gain conceptual understanding of key critical de bates in the Humanities concerning textuality, representation, and reception; - achieve historical understanding as to how and why these debates have been central to Film Studies; - demonstrate competence in the vocabularies and agendas attendant to the debates studied; - develop analytical reading skills of critical and theoretical texts; - perform varied readings of texts with awareness of their methodological underpinnings.
Teaching pattern
Ten lectures, ten three-hour screenings and ten one-hour seminars.