107-240 World Screen: Aesthetics and Politics

50 points of first year level study.

This subject explores contemporary screen aesthetics and politics. Students are given key conceptual tools with which to learn to utilize, and articulate the range of positions of communication of aesthetic and political movements of world cinemas of the 21st century. This subject introduces students to the aesthetic positions of specific screen productions and theories including examples from South-Central Asian Critical Aesthetics, Asian-Pacific, Contemporary Japanese, Western European, Scandinavian, South and North American industries. Specific directors works might include Jim Jarmusch and Gus Van Sant. Students will engage with the contemporary critical cinematographic concepts including those of Theodor Adorno, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Homi Bhabha, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Sarah Kofman, Julia Kristeva, Emmanuel Lavinas, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciare, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Paul Virilio, Slavoj Zizek. On completion of the subject students should be able to articulate a range of aesthetic connections and positions, and have a focused knowledge of a specific set of cinematic and cultural theory with which to negotiate world screen conditions.

• Students who complete this subject should be able to recognize and explain a range of critical cinematographic theory.

• This subject demonstrates to students the uses of critical theory in relation to world cinemas.

4000 words total, comprising of: a 1000 word case study and presentation 25% (commencing at the beginning of the semester and due at the end of semester), and a 3000 word research essay 75% (due at the end of semester).

A subject reader will be available from the Bookroom at the beginning of semester.