Mar 29, 2024  
2019-2020 College of Liberal Arts (Admitted Fall 2019/Spring 2020) 
    
2019-2020 College of Liberal Arts (Admitted Fall 2019/Spring 2020) [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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ENGL 238 - Cinema and Social Justice

4 credits


What is the role of cinema in social justice struggles?  How does political climate affect cinematic culture and vice versa?  What is the significance of independent media, and how do we understand the relationship between media and democracy?  We will try to address these questions by analyzing films that intervene in a range of debates about social justice: while some explore the ethics and politics of war, others take on questions of racial, economic, and environmental justice.  Most of the films we will watch are non-fiction and documentary films, including works by prominent directors like Errol Morris and Michael Moore.

When looking at individual films we will ask ourselves some of the following questions: what distinct political claims do these films make?  What is the political context in which they make these claims?  How effective are they in making these claims?  What are the broader implications of their cinematic arguments?  One of our underlying aims will be to explore what a revolutionary cinema might look like in the era of the Internet. This course is not repeatable. CLA-Diversity International



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