Module description
Each year, Topics in World Cinema takes on a specific aspect of cinema as a global phenomenon. Rather than focusing on national or regional (such as Asian or European) cinemas, world cinema as a topic asks what it means to think about cinema on a global scale. Approaches might include cinema and globalisation; the circuits and flows of films around the world; coproduction and global film industries; film festivals, streaming, and other modes of distribution; postcolonialism and decolonisation, diasporic and transnational cinemas. The module may also address key topics and themes in film studies through a global lens: for example, considering gender, sexuality, genre, or film movements across different cultures.
Assessment details
- Participation (10%),
- 1000-word film analysis exercise (30%)
- 2500 word essay (60%)
Educational aims & objectives
The aims of the module are to introduce students both to debates concerning the concepts and methods in the study of cinemas beyond Hollywood and Europe and also to consider these in relation to a detailed study of one or more specific world cinemas (most usually through a case study). World cinemas pose questions of cultural similarity to and difference from Hollywood and Europe, both in terms of the wider cultures within which they are embedded and in terms of different modes of cultural production. This is highlighted methodologically by, on the one hand, the issue of the applicability to them of paradigms of study generated in relation to Hollywood and European cinema, and, on the other, the dangers of exoticism and cultural reductionism. The study also throws into perspective such historical issues as: nationally and regionally specific aesthetics, the neutrality or otherwise of technology, the hegemony of Hollywood and I or models of 'classical cinema', the significance of colonialism and postcolonialism, the relation of specific world cinemas to their diasporas and also to international and transnational cultural production and reception. The module will embed engagement with such issues in one or more case studies, on the grounds that (a) the circumstances of different world cinemas (e.g. Japan, India, Senegal, Peru) vary too much to permit too sweeping an overview and (b) it is methodologically important to understand any instance through a reasonably detailed study of context as well as a sustained and informed study of the films as films.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practical skills appropriate to a level 5 module and in particular will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of major conceptual and methodological issues in the study of world cinema.
- Achieve an historical understanding and knowledge and aesthetic appreciation of one or more instance of world cinema.
- Analyse world cinema films in their historical, social, cultural and aesthetic dimensions.
Teaching pattern
Ten one-hour lectures, ten 90 minute screenings and ten one-hour seminars.