Connections 23014 - Film and Society

Institution:

Wheaton College - Massachusetts

Subject:

Description:

Increasingly, fictional film is used as a lens to view the social dynamics of the society that produced the film. Analysts, critics and theorists rely on a variety of conceptual frameworks and models to interpret, analyze and assess these texts and the history of their production and audience reception. These approaches include film studies, culture studies and criticism in the humanities, and content and thematic analysis in the social sciences, as well as philosophic investigations of the arguments made in film. This connection enables students to explore various aspects of this rich field in different national cinemas. In the First-Year Seminar "The Dreams We See," offered every year, students learn how to analyze selected American box office hits from over the last century as primary historical documents. Pols 345 relies on contemporary films to examine political and social issues in post- Communist Russia. In Fr 246, students learn to distinguish between modes of representation like realism, surrealism and subjective narratives to see how they reinforce or resist paradigms of class, gender or nationalism. In Itas 320, students examine how works by major Italian film directors respond to aesthetic and cultural debates and reflect the Italian socio-historical context, while Pols 225 is organized around Michael Walzer's concept of politics as an art of unification and includes ten films that are narratives about Italian unification and nation building. Any two-course connection must include one course from each of the two areas, social science or language (the FYS course is counted as a social science). Three-course connections must also include courses from two of the areas, but no more than one course from any one department. Connections: Fsem The Dreams We See and/or Pols 225 Italian Politics and/or Pols 345 Understanding Russian Politics and Society through the Prism of Film with Fr 246 Introduction to French Cinema or Itas 320 Italian Cinema or Ger 267 Lulu, Lola and Leni: Women of German Cinema or Ger 374 Film and German Culture

Credits:

2.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.wheatoncollege.edu

Phone Number:

(508) 285-7722

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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