Fantasy Film and Fiction

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Utopianism and dystopianism in film and fiction.
• Some important fantasy and horror sub-genres, such as body horror, the children’s fantasy film, gothic/supernatural horror;
• the ways in which the module texts operate as a space in which sexual, racial and other forms of difference are interrogated;
• Key psychoanalytic concepts useful in the analysis of fantasy such as the uncanny and abjection;
• The critical relationship between filmic and literary texts, including theories of adaptation;

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• evaluate and put to work relevant psychoanalytic and gender theories;
• describe the primary qualities of various fantasy sub-genres
• deploy key film theories and methodologies in the analysis of both filmic and literary texts;

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• locate relevant sections from video or dvd and present them to your peers for class discussion;
• retrieve material from the module Blackboard site.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• present the findings from your reading in class discussion;
• structure an argument in written form over 2000 words.
• work in small-group discussion and then present the results of your discussion to the group as a whole;
• analyse complex written texts, and work effectively across and between fictional, filmic and theoretical texts;

This module is concerned with fantasy film and fiction, involving analysis of a range of fantasy, science- fiction, Gothic and horror texts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, alongside psychoanalytic and cultural theories of fantasy, identity, and genre. It is organized around a number of discrete blocks of two and three weeks, focusing on Gothic 'classics', feminist fairy tales, musicals, Utopian literature, and more general writing and images specifically concerned with the body and sexual identity, as well as psychoanalytic theories of the gaze, the uncanny, abjection and identification. NOTE: this module includes study of some modern horror films. Students may find some of the images from these films upsetting, and should be aware of the course content in advance.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• Lectures
• Seminars
• Screenings
• individual essay consultation

Learning activities include

• preparing for weekly seminars, in which all students present something from their reading and viewing during the week;
• individual research, including web-based research
• making notes whilst viewing a film

This module includes a Learning Support Hour. This is a flexible weekly contact hour, designed to support and respond to the particular cohort taking the module from year to year. This hour will include (but not be limited to) activities such as language, theory and research skills classes; group work supervisions; assignment preparation and essay writing guidance; assignment consultations; feedback and feed-forward sessions.

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

Brazil (Terry Gilliam, UK 1985). Film

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, US 1939). Film

Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, US/Canada 2000). Film

B ra m St oke r’s Dra cula (Francis Ford Coppola, US 1992). Film

A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger, UK 1946). Film

The Fly (David Cronenberg, US 1986). Film

Shrek (Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, US 2001). Film

Twleve Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, US 1996). Film

Ros e ma ry’s Baby (Roman Polanski, US 1968). Film

Toy Story 2 (John Lasseter et al, US 1999). Film

The Others (Alejandro Amenábar, US 2001). Film

Orlando (Sally Potter, UK 1992). Film

Textbooks

Virginia Woolf. Orlando.

Angela Carter. The Bloody Chamber.

Bram Stoker. Dracula.

Barbara Creed (1993). The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge.

Annette Kuhn (ed) (1990). Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema. London: Verso.

Carol J. Clover (1992). Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the modern horror film. London: BFI.

Assessment strategy

Assessments designed to provide informal, on-module feedback

• short presentation each seminar on the reading/viewing you have done in preparation for that class;
• individual consultation in preparation for essays, and feedback when the essay is marked.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External