Films

Starting a few years ago, students began to complain about having an extra in-class screening. I attempted for a few years to use streaming (i.e., Netflix, YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) sources, but there are three issues. (1) On line content is unstable—what is available on Netflix one week may not be there the next, and other sources are actually worse; (2) New content, such as that featured in this class, is almost entirely unavailable; and (3) when material is available via streaming, many students will watch low fidelity copies on YouTube with advertisments while doing something else: online shopping, texting, talking on the phone, drinking, etc.—stuff they would never do in an in-class screening.  Hence, we are watching these films in class on Tuesdays, with some screenings that spill over onto Thursdays. You may absolutely watch the films at home, but Tuesdays are counted for attendance as Thursdays are—that is, don't waste your time watching the films at home: since you will be graded for being present at the screenings in class, you might as well watch them here. If you come for a few minutes and leave, or spend the time on your phone, or leave every 15 minutes to go to the bathroom, I will mark you absent for the day, and I won't warn you or inform you, because this is college, you're adults and you should act accordingly.

Paper 1

The first paper is approximately 6 pages. I sometimes encounter students who are in their senior year of college, and they have never had to write a paper more than 2 or 3 pages long. I expect you don't think this is adequate preparation for "the real world" (clear writing is one of the number one skills that employers say they'd like to see more of in college graduates), and I don't think it's adequate either. If you haven't written a longer paper before, I encourage you both to seek some guidance at the Writing Center, and to look at my advice on writing papers (both are available through the "Writing" page in the main menu at the top of this page).

For the first paper,the topic is open, but should be something about the Ferrante films, books and television that we watched that interests you: gender politics, the nature of "Italy" for the Ferrante, political ideology, the representation of disability, about 1,000 other topics, including auteur theory and how it works and doesn't work for Ferrante (hint: simply applying auteur theory to a director and saying, "yes, it works" is, by itself, boring. Surprisingly, I don't like to read boring, predictable papers, so find some flip side, some complication.

Paper 2

For your second paper,  approximately 6 pages, you will write about Rohrwacher's films, with an argument of your own choosing. When I arrived at Illinois about 12 years ago, I could (and typically did) say to a 400-level class, "and at the end, write, you know, a final paper," and students would just do that. By four or five years ago, students began to express extreme (I mean really extreme) levels of nervousness about having to pick a paper topic and write a paper. This is not ok. (See, again, "real world" above.) I expect freshmen to need help picking a paper topic, and sophomores to have trouble developing their own argument—not juniors and seniors. Part of your education in this class is learning about different things that we might say about film and articulating arguments about those things. I will do it every day in class, and you should spend class time practicing it, too. Here are some of the things you might write about: gender, politics, national identity, Italian culture and history, imperialism, the 2010s as a transitional historical era, the influence of digital media on cinema, costuming, "realism" in film, genre and generic formulas, narrative experimentation, alternative film styles, sexual violence and its representation, the disappearance of women from  films after the 1970s, transnational film, homoeroticism and the homosocial, auteurism in a transnational film market, masculinity and the male body, the crisis of migration in contemporary Europe. You need to say something about one of these topics or another one, something that is not apparent to any viewer (don't tell me these films are "strange," for example, or that they have death in them), and argue your point in a persuasive way, with evidence.

Honors

Students taking this course for honors credit will do some extra writing (at least 4-5 pp.) and reading on a topic relevant to the materials in the class; they do, however, have some leeway to address the class material in new ways (in other words, it does not need to be “just another paper,” but may involve original research by the student, or less traditional topics, or less traditional forms). 

Grades

Grades

20% attendance and participation

40% first paper

40% final paper

Graduate students: presentation

In 15-20 minutes, with or without PowerPoint or its equivalent, present an advanced theoretical argument (Deleuze on time, Silverman and Lacan, ecocriticism, disability studies, Fanon and postcolonialism, etc.). You may wish to write out your presentation in advance (a typical conference presentation is approximately 8 pages, double spaced, which will usually give you about 15 minutes; 10 pages will give you about 20 minutes), and read that in a communicative and pedagogically effective way. While your audience is chiefly undergraduates, it will normally be graduate students and faculty, so write in a way that is comprehensible but intellectually sophisticated. (And really, why wouldn't you just do that all the time?) Your task is threefold: (1) explain the reading(s) and the arguments made in some detail; (2) explain how they are significant for our understanding of contemporary auteurs; (3) position yourself with respect to the readings—what are the advantages and shortcomings of an understanding of these films based on, say, ecocriticism? Or Edelman and queer theory?

A word on PowerPoint, since it is a pet peeve of mine. PowerPoint exists in order to provide a visual counterpoint to your spoken presentation. Meditate on that mantra until you understand it. PowerPoint is not there to repeat your presentation, or worse still, to put up large blocks of text that people are supposed to read while you talk about something else. You might as well ask your audience to practice basketball while you talk. Some quick quidelines (these apply equally to Keynote, Prezi, etc.):

• Use only one template for the entire presentation.

• Use a maximum of two fonts (one for headers, one for text).

• A maximum of 3 font sizes may be used.

• Use simple, legible fonts—something assertive for headers, and a plain serif for text.

• Most of your slides should consist of images, and just images.

• Never put a block of text on the screen unless it is a passage to be analyzed.

• If that passage is too long, break it into multiple slides.

• Otherwise, if text doesn't fit, don't make it smaller—make it shorter.

• Every animation and visual "trick" you use will distract your audience from what you are saying.

• Approximately one slide per paragraph (more is okay—don't leave a single slide on screen for too long).

Graduate students: seminar paper

Seminar papers should be about 20 pages in length, and should demonstrate good writing, and a serious engagement with the primary material and the scholarship on it. When you write a seminar paper, you are practicing to write an article—they rarely get to the stage where they are actually ready to be submitted to a journal, but you are striving to move them in that direction. That means you should have an important issue in the scholarship that you think you have an interesting or worthwhile take on, and you should have read a selection of the scholarship on the specific text or texts you will be writing on. Make it sound like you know a part of the field; read a number (let's say 10) of articles and a couple of books; spend a little time on Google; get an impression of the kind of work that people are doing.