This module will explore the way in which film and related media have both shaped and responded to the history of a planetary consciousness. Its driving questions will be: how has the world, as a totalising concept and figure, been imaged and imagined in cinema and related media? What are the discourses and frameworks that inform global imaginaries as related to globalisation and, more recently, the global environmental crisis? Is the global necessarily tied to the interests of imperialism and capitalism? Why do we see the world the way we do?
This module will focus on film and history, exploring the various ways film texts have been analysed as reflecting social and cultural historical moments, filmmaking movements of particular eras, and how films have historicised individuals and events. There are many ways to ‘do’ film history and this term will not be an exhaustive survey of the history of cinema. Instead, it will offer some key contexts, methodologies, and traditions that have formed the wide-ranging study of film and history.