History and Memory In Film (15 credits)

Module description

This module examines screen fictions dealing with history and memory, with particular stress on contemporary fiction filmmaking and the discourses about historical representation in the cinema. The period film is often associated with the heritage debates in the early 1990s, nostalgia and the rise of retro styles in postmodern film cultures. However, film representations of the past also allow for nuanced reconfigurations of national, gender, and class identities. Topics may typically include visual culture and the idea of 'pastness'; literary adaptation; intertextuality and intermediality; retro-aesthetics; memory and traumatic histories; feminist re-readings of the past; and national identities and the global image market.

Assessment details

Coursework

1 x 5000 words essay

Educational aims & objectives

To introduce the study of contemporary representations of the past as part of the heritage debates form a Film Studies perspective encompassing interdisciplinary approaches. To analyse, interrogate, and extend the prevalent paradigms in the field.  To apply such paradigms against selected case studies. To develop critical, interpretative and analytical abilities through the study of audiovisual texts and their cultural significance.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, the students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practicable skills appropriate to a Level 7 module and in particular will be able to demonstrate:

Knowledge of the range of debates and methodologies surrounding heritage cinemas, and their relevance to contemporary Film Studies.

Understanding of the role of filmic reconstructions of the past in the production of national and gender identities.

Understanding of the relationship between cultural specificity and the international contexts of production and consumption. 

Development of textual - analysis skills; attention to form and style as key to the production of meaning; ability to relate textual to contextual issues.

Teaching pattern

Ten two and a half-hour screenings and ten two-hour seminars

1 weekly screening (approx 2 and a half hours)

Suggested reading list

Core course readings will be provided.

Module description disclaimer

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