106-068 Imagining Hollywood

Usually fifty points of first year arts including at least 25 points from a specified list of subject areas.

This subject is designed to introduce students to ways of thinking critically, historically and analytically about studio-era Hollywood cinema. Tracing its constitution through the broad socio-historical frames of modernity, consumerism, and mass culture, the subject engages studio-era Hollywood as a paradigmatic institution of contemporary culture. It seeks to provide students with a detailed understanding of Hollywood cinema as a cultural industry, a formal style and a social mythology. By the end of semester students should be familiar with the discourses which circulate around ideas of 'Hollywood'; Hollywood as mass entertainment; Hollywood and commodity culture; Hollywood as textual system and aesthetic style; Hollywood and exhibition practices; the cult of the Hollywood star; and textual and spectatorial reworkings of Hollywood film.

• gain a social, ethical and cultural understanding of self and others;

• be able to critically analyse and synthesis;

• have developed effective written and oral communication;

• have developed information management and information literacy;

• have developed teamwork, flexibility and tolerance;

• be able to manage time and planning effectively.

Class participation and a group presentation of 10-15 minutes in class of 500 words 10%, an essay of 1500 words 40% (due mid-semester) and a final essay of 2000 words 50 (due at the end of semester).

A subject reader will be available from the University Bookshop.

• R Maltby, Hollywood Cinema. (2nd ed) Blackwell.