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FS5522: LABOUR, LEISURE AND THE MOVING IMAGE (2016-2017)

Last modified: 28 Jun 2018 10:27


Course Overview

Analysing the moving image's relationship to industrialism, leisure time, consumerism, post-Fordism and many other issues, the course will link a diverse group of visual works to important historical and theoretical trends in the work and free time of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Each week will be organised around an overarching theme (work, strike, automation, the idle rich etc.), pairing important texts in the history and theory of labour with relevant film works and analysis. Students will be marked according to participation in seminar and a final research essay.

Course Details

Study Type Postgraduate Level 5
Session Second Sub Session Credit Points 30 credits (15 ECTS credits)
Campus Old Aberdeen Sustained Study No
Co-ordinators
  • Dr Paul Flaig

Qualification Prerequisites

None.

What courses & programmes must have been taken before this course?

  • Any Postgraduate Programme (Studied)

What other courses must be taken with this course?

None.

What courses cannot be taken with this course?

None.

Are there a limited number of places available?

No

Course Description

In a certain sense, cinema begins at the threshold of work and leisure, with the Lumiere brothers documenting, in their earliest film, their own employees crossing the line from the space of the factory to the space of free time. Beginning with the Lumieres’ Workers Leaving the Factory, this course will examine the relationship between moving images, labour and leisure. We will explore the many ways cinema depicts different labour practices (human, automated or otherwise) and places (factories, offices, studios) in documentaries, narrative films and experimental works. Moreover, we will look at cinema's own relationship to work, both as complex, evolving industry and as a venue for entertainment, promising escape from the time and space of labour while simultaneously putting its spectators to work in ways both explicit and unconscious. Films by Farocki, Chaplin, Eisenstein, La Cava, De Sica, Godard, Akerman, Kopple, Altman, von Trier, Pixar and others.

Contact Teaching Time

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

Teaching Breakdown

More Information about Week Numbers


Details, including assessments, may be subject to change until 31 August 2023 for 1st half-session courses and 22 December 2023 for 2nd half-session courses.

Summative Assessments

1st Attempt;  1 research essay (100%) (5000 words)

Resit;  1 research essay (100%) (5000 words)

Formative Assessment

There are no assessments for this course.

Feedback

None.

Course Learning Outcomes

None.

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