HIST 264 - Film and History

Institution:

Trinity College

Subject:

Description:

Up to the advent of the modern era, most people preserved their historical memory and produced historical narratives and interpretations of the past through oral traditions, since written texts were generally accessed only by educated elites. With the advent of the printing press and later the emergence of professional history as an academic discipline, the modern era witnessed the rise of printed historical scholarship as the principal medium for accessing historical memory and historical interpretation. However, the 20th century saw the emergence of new forms of communication through cinema and television that produced a multitude of texts that came to be the primary form through which large segments, if not the majority, of people the world over gained knowledge of the past. For example, from D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, to Ken Burns' The Civil War and beyond, millions of Americans came to experience cinema and television as the principal form of historical knowledge-production and dissemination. This course will explore the relationship between history as written by historians and history as represented in cinema. We will study both fiction and documentary films framed by debates between historians, film scholars, and filmmakers. In the process, students will be introduced to film analysis as a form of literacy. 1.00 units, Lecture

Credits:

1.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.Trincoll.edu

Phone Number:

(860) 297-2000

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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