Search results: 334
This module is intended to introduce students to the techniques and skills of textual analysis, and to develop their understanding and appreciation of cinema both past and present. It aims to introduce cinema through a range of critical lenses and frameworks, familiarising students with key formal strategies and critical concepts that are necessary for analysing films. It is designed to ensure that students are adept at examining the various visual, aural and narrative conventions by which they create meaning and how these meanings have been understood within the academic field of film studies.
The module is divided into four units across two terms. Unit one offers students various methods for developing and applying the critical vocabulary required to analyse formal elements of cinema; such as mise-en-scène, editing, staging, and composition. Unit two shifts to consider the variety of texts covered by the term cinema, including animation, experimental film, and documentary. In the second term, the module moves on to cover key theoretical concerns in film studies, including authorship, genre, and stardom. The remaining weeks draw on the skills and knowledge acquired across the course in order to engage with key issues of politics and representation in film.
Students will explore these ideas through a wide and engaging array of films from different countries and different periods in the history of cinema. By focusing on a range of films, this module will ultimately equip students with the necessary analytical skills to discover cinema’s richness, its complexity and its expressiveness‘World cinema’ remains a highly contested category in film studies. The grouping of films from around the non-western world into this category has come to represent both the flattening impulses of a universalizing (neo)liberalism and the political potential for international coalition-building. Debates about ‘world cinema’ remind us how film-viewing plays a role in affective negotiations of global culture, international community, crisis response, and human rights. Since the term ‘world cinema’ has always simultaneously invoked industrial, generic, and aesthetic categories, our exploration of the field finds geopolitical fault lines in various critical discourses: art cinema aesthetics, humanism, neo-neorealism, the touristic gaze, and revolutionary cinema. This module examines a wide range of fictional feature films, including the work of Sara Gómez, Mati Diop, Akira Kurosawa, Samira Makhmalbaf, and Satyajit Ray, among others. By reassessing this thorny category of ‘world cinema’ in light of globalization, feminism, and black liberation, this module asks: What is cinema’s role in world-making? To whose world does cinema belong?
This module offers students the opportunity to study postcolonial film from different historical and national contexts and via a range of geopolitical and technological shifts. It will explore the changing relationship between colonialism and film through the course of the twentieth century and beyond. The module will begin by interrogating cinemas of and as Empire with an emphasis upon Anglo-American history, its ‘imperial gaze’ and neo-colonial Hollywood. It will then move on to explore various case studies of colonial, de-colonial or anti-colonial film (for example, Indian cinema or Palestinian film) and to consider key related themes such as questions of diaspora (via Accented cinema) and of the digital (via online activism).
Summary of Aims: This module explores the impact of colonialism upon national cinemas and filmmaking practices in broad terms and through detailed examples. It aims to provide a solid understanding of this well-established but still unfolding field whilst furthering students’ analytical and critical skills, allowing them to enter confidently into its debates.
Anticipated Learning Outcomes: By the end of the semester you will be able to:
• Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of the impact of colonialism on national cinemas and filmmaking practices.
• Critically contextualise the relationship between Empire and Cinema via historical, geopolitical, technological and aesthetic concerns.
• Articulate (in verbal and written form) a critically engaged understanding of the ways in which film has reflected, reinforced, resisted or rescripted ‘Imperial’ (orientalist/racist/colonial) processes and legacies.
• Demonstrate an ability to offer nuanced and detailed analyses of film texts that enter, confidently, into postcolonial debates.
All teaching – lecture, screening and seminar – takes place in room A1.27 from 12.00-16/16.30 on Wednesdays. The one timetabled screening per week is to be supplemented by a required viewing done on the student’s own time. As well as preparing for class each week by doing the readings assigned, and trying to watch the additional films recommended, students may be asked occasionally to do some web-based informal research or ‘tasks’ for relevant sessions. All seminars (week 2-10) will include an unassessed student presentation – on the week’s topic, determined in consultation with the module leader – which will form the basis of the presenters’ first assignment, the review essay. The requirements for this will be discussed further in class.
Please come to seminars prepared = having read and annotated assigned texts identifying any areas or ideas that were hard to follow or particularly interesting, and formulating questions in response to them and the viewings you have done, which will allow you to contribute fully to seminar discussion.
ASSESSMENT:
One 1,000 word Review Essay – 20% Deadline: Monday 6th April 2020
Building upon the unassessed presentation, this essay will critically evaluate the de-, post-, or anti-colonial concerns of one case study. Guidance on this provided in week 1
One 4,000 word Essay – 80% Deadline: Tuesday 5th May 2020
A tour of Modern Fortran (Fortran-90 and newer) for researchers writing and editing Fortran code. Assumes basic programming knowledge in any language.
Fortran is quite a compact language, with unmatched support for multi-dimensional arrays right there in the core. This course gives a tour of almost all of Modern Fortran for those who need to use it, with lots of example code and exercises.
Studying sociology offers insights into social and cultural issues. It helps you develop a multi-perspective and critical approach to understanding issues around culture, identity, religion, education, work and social power. More than once during the course you’re bound to ask yourself the question, “Why have we developed like this".
The W.I.F.P sociology course helps students develop a number of new skills: • How to use evidence to support your arguments • How to investigate facts and use deduction • How to put over your point of view fluently • How to work as a team to achieve results • How to take responsibility for your own learning.
Who hasn't heard of Napoleon? Who doesn't recognise his hat? Why have Nicolas Sarkozy, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron be likened to him? And what might those comparisons mean? This module aims to introduce students to the key events and ideas of the First Empire through contemporary sources. A range of material will be used, from official declarations to political pamphlets to the plays of the period to allow you to understand Napoleon's achievements and controversies.
In addition, Napoleon’s reign will be used as a case study to examine leadership styles and potential derailers for leaders. Napoleon is frequently used as an example of high and low points in leadership and we will be comparing key concepts in leadership theory with Napoleon's career and achievements.
By the end of the module, students will have:
i) engaged critically with events and discourse 1799-1815
ii) developed greater insight into the evolution of the socio-political and cultural context in France 1799-1815
iii) developed their capacity to work with original source material in the target language and to examine and analyse such source material in a coherent and succinct manner.
iv) used Napoleon’s career to examine what lessons can be learnt for 21st-century leadershipr.
Assessment Method:
Either
1 x 2000-2500 word essay and 1 x 1hr exam
Or
1 x 10 minute oral presentation and 3500 word essayThis course is for students on the GD202 course: GSD (+/- partner subject) with intercalated work placement.
The uncompromising modernity of Kafka’s writing has fascinated generations of readers across the world. His fiction has added the word Kafkaesque to the English dictionary for the experience of an obscure and dislocating modernity. A vast body of criticism concerns the question of how to read a body of writing that upsets many of the reader’s conventional expectations about meaning-making. In this module we will analyse how Kafka employs realist, symbolist and allegorical frames of reference in order to challenge the very notion of stable meaning. You will study a selection of Kafka’s short stories with reference to the following themes: narrative perspective; authority, law and justice; gender roles; performance art and Kafka’s animals. The module is optional for students on all degrees and runs over one term.
Course Outline and Weekly Schedule
Week 1: Introduction: Auf der Galerie
Week 2: NO CLASS! Preparation for: Patriarchal Power and the Power of the Unconscious in Das Urteil [See 'Student Preparation']
Week 3: Patriarchal Power and the Power of the Unconscious in Das Urteil (continued)
Week 4: NO CLASS! Social Power and Collective Memory in Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer and “Eine kaiserliche Botschaft”
Week 5 a): Performance Art or Art as Sham? Ein Hungerkünstler
Week 5 b): Lecture, Wednesday 31 October, 2018, 5-7pm: When Anti-World Literature Turns into World Literature: Kafka’s Archives of Resistance
Week 6: READING WEEK
Week 7: Kafka's Animals: Kafka‘s Kleine Fabel in Comparison with Aesop’s Der Löwe und die Maus
Week 8: Kafka's Animals: The Ape and his Audience in Ein Bericht für eine Akademie
Week 9: Kafka's Animals: Narrative Perspective and Gender in Josefine, die Sängerin oder das Volk der Mäuse
Week 10 a): Make-up lesson for week 4, Monday 3rd December [room: TBA]: Social Power and Collective Memory in Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer and “Eine kaiserliche Botschaft”
Week 10 b) Course Summary: “Vor dem Gesetz” and Franz Kafka's Engagement with Modernity
This module intends to provide students with a basic knowledge of the ways in which architecture (as design, planning, and ideology) became one of the delegated fields in which a social, political, or cultural idea of the future could be articulated and implemented from the age of Industrial Revolution to the present day. The module will show how the ideas of theorists and visionaries ended up influencing the form of the everyday built environment around the world. The course will start by exploring the way that rapid urbanisation and industrialisation led many to seek alternative ways of living, whether by looking towards an idealised often-rural past. The module will cover many of the most influential and radical urban theorists of the last 200 years, and will show how their ideas informed the creation of new communities around the globe. It will end by asking how useful Utopian ideas are for solving the many challenges that face urban populations today.
Module Outline
Mannerism defines a key historical period in European arts, bridging the Renaissance and Baroque periods, which is characterised by a shift towards an increasingly more artful, idiosyncratic approach to artistic invention and practice. The term itself, however, is controversial, as it was forged by modern critics on the basis of the Italian sixteenth-century expression maniera (‘manner’, ‘style’). The broad aim of this module is to bring to the fore a number of critical issues raised by the many-sided notion of Mannerism, provide an in-depth examination of a large body of artists and artworks (drawings, paintings, sculptures and architecture) associated with it. The module is based on student-centred seminars, and structured in such a way that students will be invited to reflect on how their understanding of the concept of Mannerism changes throughout. It focuses on how theorists and artists developed new ways of conceiving of artistic practice, by placing unprecedented emphasis on the individual’s inventiveness and talent, and taking the ideal of beauty well beyond the rules of classical art that had prevailed in the High Renaissance. The analysis of theoretical principles elaborated by Italian treatise writers such as Vasari and Lomazzo is combined with an extensive survey of artistic practices and stylistic features that spread from Italy across Europe in the sixteenth century.
Sample Syllabus
Vasari's art theory
Mannerism in the modern scholarship
Models to imitate: Michelangelo and Raphael
The study of the human figure
Drawing and draughtsmanship
Between Florence and Rome: the early Italian Mannerists (Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo, Parmigianino, Bronzino, Salviati)
Mannerism in sculpture: Cellini to Giambologna
Mannerism in architecture
The School of Fontainebleau
Dutch Mannerists
The School of Prague
Art and Nature: the Mannerist garden
The question of the sacred images
The Later Mannerists
Module Format
This module consists of both lectures and seminars. Seminars are student-centred; you should be prepared to contribute to the discussion in order to reap the benefits. Seminars may vary in format, and will entail a variety of in-class group activities including occasional group presentations.
Module Aims
By the end of the module you should be able to understand and compare/contrast:
- Demonstrate critical understanding of how Mannerism impacted on the development of Western art and how it has been discussed in modern scholarship.
- Learn how to deal critically with periodisation, stylistic categories and complex theoretical concepts.
- Demonstrate a grasp of the main lines of Mannerism-related artworks and the notion of Mannerism in contemporary art theory
- Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the works studied and their contexts
- Deploy these ideas critically in relation to other forms of art
Moreover, you should be able to:
- Make use of primary sources to contextualise the material;
- Improve your analytical skills and incorporate visual analysis in your work;
- Frame artists and artworks in their historical contexts and situate them in a broader art historical discourse;
- Deal with theoretical issues and historiographical concepts related to the Renaissance.
Workload
2 x 2-hour lecture/seminar per week
1 x Field trip
You should carry our a minimum of 7 hours preparatory reading and independent research per week
Assessment
3,500 word Portfolio including both documentary evidence and reflective writing (50%)
Slide test Assignment (20%)
1,500 word Essay (30%)
Introductory Reading
Essential
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects (ed. 1568), translated by Conaway, J., and Bondanella, P. (Oxford, 1991), ‘Preface’ to Part 3. [http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2952624~S1]
Robert Williams, ‘Italian Renaissance Art and the Systemacity of Representation’, in Elkins, J, and Williams, R., Renaissance Theory (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 159-184 [http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2344574~S1]
Michael Levey, High Renaissance (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), esp. Ch. 1, pp. 15-63.
Walter Friedlaender, Mannerism and Anti-mannerism in Italian Painting (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
John Shearman, Mannerism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967).
Philip Sohm, Style in the Theory of Early Modern Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 86-114Chapter 4, 'Giorgio Vasari: Aestheticizing and Historicizing Style'.
Robert Williams, Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 29-72 (ch. 1, ‘Vasari's Concept of Disegno’), and pp. 73-122 (Ch. 2, ‘Style, Decorum and the Viewer’s Experience’)
Further
The concept of Mannerism in modern scholarship
Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450–1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962).
Arnold Hauser, Mannerism: The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origin of Modern Art (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965).
Enrst H. Gombrich, ‘Mannerism: The Historiographic Background’, in Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (London and New York: Phaidon, 1966), pp. 99-106.
Hessel Miedema, ‘On Mannerism and Maniera’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 10 (1978–1979), No. 1, pp. 19-45.
Jeroen Stumpel, ‘Speaking of Manner’, Word and Image, Vol. 4 (1988), No. 1, pp. 246-264.
Introduction to more specific themes
Sydney J. Freedberg, Painting of the High Renaissance in Rome and Florence (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1985).
Linda Murray, The High Renaissance and Mannerism: Italy, the North, and Spain, 1500–1600 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977).
Wolfgang Lotz, Architecture in Italy, 1500-1600 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).
Marcia B. Hall, After Raphael: Painting in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999)
Bastien Eclercy (ed.), Maniera: Pontormo, Bronzino and Medici Florence, exh. cat. (Munich, London, New York : Prestel, 2016).
Michael Cole, Cellini and the Principles of Sculpture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
David Franklin, Painting in Renaissance Florence, 1500–1550 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
Henri Zerner, Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism (Paris: Flammarion, 2004).
Thomas Da Costa Kaufmann, The School of Prague: Painting at the Court of Rudolf II (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988).