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Postgraduate Film And Visual Culture 2015-2016

FS5017: INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL CULTURE AND THEORY

30 credits

Level 5

First Sub Session

This course will begin by taking a historical perspective to discuss some of the key interventions which have helped define visual culture as a field of enquiry, including work by Benjamin, Barthes, Burgin, Mitchell and Rosler among others. It will move on to explore some key theoretical concepts and paradigms, such as authorship, spectatorship, materiality, semiotics, digital culture and the archive.

FS5019: INTRODUCTION TO FILM THEORY AND ANALYSIS

30 credits

Level 5

First Sub Session

This course offers an introduction to the practice of formal film analysis.  It will explore a different element of film form each week and study the ways in which it shapes the moving image. This course will also introduce the key critical and theoretical frameworks that have shaped the discipline and our understanding of cinema. Rather than offering a survey of film history or a small collection of classics, this course invites students to think about formal elements within and across a wide range of genres, styles, historical moments, and national contexts.

FS5020: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CINEMA

30 credits

Level 5

First Sub Session

This course will examine the history of psychoanalysis and cinema’s clinical, philosophical and filmic interactions before approaching film works as case studies of specific pathologies and concepts (psychosis, perversion, trauma etc.). Films by Pabst, Powell, Hitchcock, Haneke, Lynch, Svankmajer, Huston, Olivier, Winocour, Cronenberg and others will be considered.

FS5517: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF VISUAL CULTURE

30 credits

Level 5

First Sub Session

Students will be introduced to the critical analysis of visual culture through discussion of classic studies from secondary literature across film, photography and visual culture.  Students will identify and define a corpus of primary visual material in consultation with the course leader, to serve as the basis for student-led workshops and subsequent assessed coursework. Workshops will involve close analysis and discussion of specific examples, by way of preparation for the assessed essay and blog post. The latter will focus on a single image and will train students in writing for a non-academic audience.

FS5518: THE ANIMATE

30 credits

Level 5

Second Sub Session

This course will analyze the image’s intersections with life, death, movement and soul in a range of texts and works: Kleist, Baudelaire, Freud, Rilke, Benjamin, Schulz, Barthes, Whale, Lubitsch, Bellmer, Jonze, Scott, Erice, Disney, Svankmajer and the Quays.

FS5521: ON DOCUMENTARY: HISTORY, THEORY AND PRACTICE

30 credits

Level 5

Second Sub Session

This course will explore the history of the documentary film and theoretical approaches for interpreting its context, allowing students to engage in production by putting into practice methodologies they have studied through a series of seminar discussions, workshops and screenings. Students will work in teams to research and video a project, utilizing the Media Lab’s facilities to complete the work through post-production.

FS5901: VISUAL CULTURE: DISSERTATION

60 credits

Level 5

Second Sub Session

Candidates will be required to research and write a 12,000-word dissertation on a subject and in an area approved by the Programme Co-ordinator.

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