Postgraduate Course: Mytho-Poetic Cinema (CLLC11101)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Common Courses (School of Lit, Lang and Cult) |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | The objective of the course will be to establish a dialogue on questions such as national identity, historical legitimacy and an ethno-cultural tradition, and the role that myth plays in the formation of such conventions. The texts chosen to are designed 1) to introduce the politics of identity that are played out in filmic, literary, historical and sociological contexts, 2) to abstract conventional mythic images by taking them out of the context of linear and spatial narratives, and 3) to use epic forms as devices for diffusing conventional (monolithic) myths. Examines the areas of film studies to engage in intellectual debate on what constitutes an "imagined community, history, identity." We will focus on poetry and films that challenge notions of collective identity that directly translate into politically institutionalized discourse. Unlike Mikhail Bakhtin's definition of epic demarcating an absolute past of firsts and bests upon which national identity is constituted, the mytho-poetics concentrate on disruption of the conventional representations of national identity.
The first section of the course will focus on film language and the distinction between myth and poetry.
The second section will concentrate on the carnival of nationalism, exploring Bakhtinian theory popularized by both semioticians and film theorists in the 1980s.
The third section, will concentrate on a more formalist type of mytho-poetics; one that continues the modernist tradition of fragmentation, sense of "lostness." Rather than reproducing a series of broken images, it creates what Benjamin would call a "constellation" - that is, it evokes multiple references, time zones, interpretations, criticisms. We will focus on the works of, Tarkovsky, Pasolini, and Heidegger.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
| By the end of the course students should be able to demonstrate a working knowledge of the different theories of poetics, myth and their impact on key film auteurs. They should be able to comment on the way that film has been able to juxtapose divergent if not opposing discourses ( e.g., mythic spiritualism and the Nietzschean eternal return, neorealist aesthetics and poetic realism, classical painting and ethnography, psychoanalytic and scientific understandings of human behavior ) and to discuss the effects of such juxtapositions on narrative forms of representation. , |
Assessment Information
| One 4,000 word essay to be submitted at the end of the semester as directed in the programme handbook. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Kristine Ravetto-Biagioli
Tel: (0131 6)51 3237
Email: K.Ravetto@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Heather Elliott
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: Heather.Elliott@ed.ac.uk |
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