Cinema and Political Theory

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Draw on, and critically engage, debates in film studies and political theory with respect to cinema as a medium of political thought and to demonstrate this through evaluations of different accounts of cinema as political theory and of different readings of particular films
• Evaluate particular films as contributions to political thinking

Introduction: Cinema as a medium of political thought (wk1)

1.Genre 1 (e.g., The Western: Foundings and Social Contracts) (wks2-4)

2.Genre 2 (e.g., Film Noir: Alienation, Corruption and Ethics) (wks 5-7)

3.Genre 3 (e.g., Comedies of Re-Marriage: Publicity, Education and Democracy) (wks8-10)

4.Debating Cinema as Political Theory (wks11-12)

Teaching and learning methods

One lecture and one seminar each week.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Robert Pippin (2012). Fatalism in Film Noir. University of Virginia Press.

Stanley Cavell (2005). Cities of Words. Belknap Press.

Joshua Foa Dienstag (2016). Cinema, Democracy, Perfectionism. Manchester University Press.

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