DELC212: Society on Screen: The Language of Film

• Terms Taught: Lent / Summer Terms only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS credits
• Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

How do films deal with aspects of society like migration, environment, artificial intelligence and gender? Do they entertain viewers, instruct them, or both? In what ways do cinematic techniques play a part? This module explores connections between European and Latin American films and their socio-historical contexts. It also considers form and technique: the language of film. To these ends, there will be introductory lectures on cinema and society and on film aesthetics and content in the first week of the module. During the remainder of the module, the connections mentioned will be the focus of seminars and presentations within the four typical topic areas: the environment, gender, artificial intelligence and migration.

Educational Aims

Students view and discuss modern European and Latin American films which highlight the core topics. Lectures will situate the films in terms of the social and historical context of the period and countries in which they were made. Artificial intelligence, migration, the environment and gender, for example, are differently manifested in each of the countries studied. The course will explore the relationship between cinema, such issues and their representation. Students will acquire a broad understanding of cinema of the period (1960s-present) together with an ability to analyse, contextualise and compare varying cinematic representations of a number of themes, together with the techniques used in those representations.

Outline Syllabus

The module consists of two introductory weeks on form and society then four two-week strands on typically the following topics: migration, environment, gender and artificial intelligence. Each strand will be introduced with a lecture and followed by seminars on the set films.

The films mentioned here are indicative only. They are subject to change. The films listed here give you an idea of a typical syllabus and the kinds of films that are analysed: I’m Your Man/Ich bin dein Mensch (Maria Schrader, 2022), My Life in Pink/Ma vie en rose (Alain Berliner, 1997), Tony Manero (Pablo Larraín, 2008) and Dislocation (Jianxin Huang, 1989) and Land and Freedom (Ken Loach, 1995).

Assessment Proportions

• Essay(s): 40%
• Exam: 45%
• Clip Analysis: 15%

DELC364: Latin America and Spain on Film: Violences and Masculinities

• Terms Taught: Lent / Summer Terms only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS credits
• Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

Violence is a consistent feature of the cinemas of Spain and Latin America. The vast majority of violent acts in Latin American and Spanish films are carried out by men, raising specific concerns about the representation of links between men and violence on film. This module looks at key motifs as well as broader themes such as the absent patriarch and depictions of the male body. Students will examine representations of different kinds of violence, including structural, psychological and political violence. You will be expected to discuss the connections made between these and the masculinities with which they are associated. To this end, theoretical support will be given throughout towards current ideas about masculinities and violence in both sociology and cultural studies.

Educational Aims

The aim of this module is to provide students with a grasp of both the historical contexts for violence and masculinities as they are depicted in Spanish and Latin American film as well as an understanding of theoretical approaches which can help to enrich analyses of such violence and evolving masculinities. The course seeks to pluralise violence so that it is understood by students as physical, non-physical, criminal, psychological, structural and invisible. Masculinities will always be considered in the plural. Another aim is to ensure students have the terminology to discuss such contexts and approaches in relation to specific films in a coherent and intellectually appropriate framework.

Students will first be required to view films in historical contexts which highlight key themes in the selected films. Students will be encouraged to observe and analyse structural violence, criminal violence, gender violence and political violence in these films and to understand their relationship with such categories as hegemonic, protest and patriarchal masculinities. Such violence(s) and masculinities will not only be contextualised historically but also approached through theories on aesthetics, film reception, gender and ideology. In this way students will be able to approach questions concerning the 'invisible' nature of domestic violence, violence as a means (or not) of providing 'cheap shocks' and different aesthetic approaches towards the depiction of state violence.

On successful completion of this module students will be able to...

• contextualise Spanish and Latin American films by placing them in their appropriate historical settings and by understanding the relationship between those historical settings and the films concerned.
• apply their historical contextualisation with an understanding of theories of violence and masculinities.
• analyse these films with due reference to the cinematic contexts for each country (eg. censorship, strength of film industry, availability and sources of capital etc.), using appropriate film terminology and critically engaging with existing interpretations of the corpus of films.
• present material on film, learning to juggle effectively stills, secondary sources, dialogue and their own analyses.
• examine cultural products or texts in socio-historical contexts.

Outline Syllabus

There will then be 8 weeks of study of four separate strands, each strand consisting of two weeks study of two films. The strands are: Structural Violence, Crash Cinemas, Gender Violence, Boys and Men. The second hour of the second week of each strand will consist of presentations by students either individually, in pairs or in groups of three.

In a typical year, the films concerned will include Memories of Underdevelopment (Cuba, 1968); La frontera (Chile, 1991); Amores perros (Mexico, 2000); Abre los ojos (Spain, 1997); Camila (Argentina, 1984); Te doy mis ojos (Spain, 2003); City of God (2002) and El espinazo del diablo (Spain, 2001).

The films are in Spanish or Portuguese with English subtitles. The vast majority of secondary texts are in English and the teaching is also in English.

Assessment Proportions

Essay(s): 40% Presentation (Assessed): 15% Exam: 45%

Presentations will be delivered by individuals, pairs, or groups of 3. In pairs and groups, each student will receive the same mark in order to encourage teamwork in the preparation process. Students will be required to deposit their powerpoint presentation on Moodle.

Feedback for both essay and presentation will follow current departmental practice. Presentations will be recorded (audio only) and students will be sent feedback by email. The feedback will contain two to three paragraphs of prose. The essay will focus on one submodule which must not be the submodule they have studied for their presentation. Written feedback will inform revision for the exam.

In the written examination (45%) students will pick one question out of several proposed options and write an essay responding to that question. The questions will address the concepts and material discussed in the lectures and seminars. Students must choose a question on a topic they have not studied in either their presentation or their CWA essay for DELC364.

ENGL378: Children in Horror Fiction and Film

• Terms Taught:
  • Lent / Summer Terms only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites:
  • Must have significant previous studies in English Literature.
  • This is a strict quota module, and there will be only a limited number of places (if any) available to visiting students

Course Description

Course Outline:

This module will focus upon the motif of 'the child' within 20th and 21st century horror fiction and film. Students will expand upon key critical and theoretical skills and apply these skills to popular fiction and film adaptation, using the motif of the child as a focus for this. The module will also encourage students to interrogate texts from a range of theoretical perspectives such as cultural materialism, psychoanalysis, and feminism in order to reveal how and why representations of the child in the horror genre supply an important cultural, psychological, and political point of reference for literary studies.

More specifically, the module aims to explore the cultural significance of the motif of the child in horror fiction and film through analysis of themes such as innocence and evil, psychic powers, child abuse, parenting, technology and grief. We will analyse the process of adaptation from novel to film and examine how issues relating to gender are crucial to the horror genre. The module will develop in students a sophisticated ability to think critically and analytically about how an exploration of popular fiction and film can reveal deep cultural anxieties and fixations at a historical and psychological level.

Educational Aims

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:

• identify and comment on the cultural, political and psychological importance of the trope of the child in horror fiction and film
• relate key themes explored to gender issues
• apply key theoretical and critical skills to the texts discussed
• think critically about the ways in which adaptation from novel to film can ‘change’ a text

Outline Syllabus

Set Texts

• Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898)
• William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist (1971)
• Daphne du Maurier, Don't Look Now (1973)
• Stephen King, The Shining (1977)
• Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones (2002)

Set Films:

• The Bad Seed (1956), dir. Mervyn LeRoy
• The Innocents (1961), dir. Jack Clayton
• Don't Look Now (1973), dir. Nicholas Roeg
• The Exorcist (1973), dir. William Friedkin
• The Shining (1980), dir. Stanley Kubrick
• The Ring (1998), dir. Hadeo Nakata and (2002), dir. Gore Verbinski
• The Sixth Sense (1999), dir. M. Night Shyamalan
• The Lovely Bones (2010), dir. Peter Jackson
• Hereditary (2018), dir. Ari Aster

Course Structure

Week 1 – 'The Bad Seed'? Introduction and The Bad Seed (1956), dir. Melvyn LeRoy

Week 2 – 'The Evil or Innocent Child': Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898) and film version The Innocents (1961), dir. Jack Clayton.

Week 3 – 'The Death of a Child': Daphne du Maurier, Don't Look Now (1970) and film version (1973), dir. Nicholas Roeg.

Week 4 – 'The Possessed Child': William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist (1971) and film version (1973), dir. William Friedkin.

Week 5 – 'The Psychic Child': The Sixth Sense (1999), dir. M. Night Shyamalan.

Week 6 – Independent Study Week

Week 7 – 'The Abused Child and Imagination': Stephen King, The Shining (1977) and film version (1980), dir. Stanley Kubrick.

Week 8 – 'Children and Technology': Adaptations of Kojo Suzuki's novel, The Ring (1991). A comparison of the film version (1998) dir. Hadeo Nakata and (2002), dir. Gore Verbinski.

Week 9 – 'That Red Riding Hood Thing': Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones (2002) and film version (2010) dir. Peter Jackson

Week 10 – Hereditary (2018), dir. Ari Aster

Assessment Proportions

• Exercise (1,000 words): 20%
• Essay (3,500 words): 80%

LICA101: Fundamentals: Contemporary Arts and Design

• Terms Taught:
  • Michaelmas Term Only
  • Full Year Only (you must also take the appropriate LICA102 module)
  NOTE: For the Full Year option, the student will need to specialise in either Film, Theatre or Art (Design is not available in this instance) 
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 8 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites:
  • No Pre-requisite
  • For the Full Year option, student will need to specialise in either Film, Theatre, or Art (Design is not available in this instance)

Course Description

This term introduces students to university-level study of the arts and design, and their contexts and interrelations. In this first block, during the first term, students on the Art, Design, Film and Theatre programmes will work together in mixed seminar groups to explore the different ways in which creative practitioners respond to the world around them, focusing on three significant themes. They will be introduced to the key critical concepts used by academics to write about the creative work produced by practitioners engaging with these themes.

This will be taught through a conventional combination of weekly lectures and seminars. Each lecture will be delivered by two colleagues from different programmes, to provide students with an indication of the variety of approaches that can be taken to each topic.

Educational Aims

• Understanding of how to identify and locate appropriate primary objects of study (for examples films, plays, designed objects or artworks)
• Understanding of how to identify and locate appropriate secondary critical material on art, drama, design and film
• Understanding of the importance of selecting appropriate research and analysis methods for the study of art, drama, design and film at undergraduate level
• Understanding of the medium-specific conventions through which meaning is made and conveyed in art, drama, design or film
• Knowledge and understanding of some key critical and theoretical debates regarding art, drama, design or film
• Understanding of the importance of presenting research findings in a clear and well-supported way, following academic presentational conventions

Outline Syllabus

• Week 1: Introduction: Research in the Arts

Block 1: Primary Sources and Argumentation.

• Week 2 “Lancaster University seen through Two Primary Sources.”
• Week 3 “The Idea of the University Through the Arts”
• Week 4 “What does an Argument do?”

Block 2: What is A Secondary Source?

• Week 5 “Criticism and The North”
• Week 6 “Critically Revisiting Visions of The UK”
• Week 7 “Writing An Essay About The West”

Block 3: What Does Creative Research Do Today?

• Week 8 “Creative Research: Using Art to Explore What People are Like Today.”
• Week 9 “Art as Research Environment”
• Week 10 “Artistic Research Doing Things in the World”

Assessment Proportions

• Journal 100%

LICA102G: Fundamentals: Film (part 1)

• Terms Taught:
  • Lent / Summer Terms Only
  • For the Full Year option, you will need to take LICA101 module
• US Credits: 2 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 4 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites:
  • No Pre-requisite
  • For full year option, student will need to specialise in either Film, Theatre or Art (Design is not available in this instance)
  • You will not be able to take LICA102, if you have not studied LICA101 in Michaelmas Term
  • You will be required to take LICA102H

Course Description

This module is designed to supplement and enhance the essential knowledge and skills covered in the main module in Film, LICA150, and develops the study skills to which students are introduced in LICA101. It will be taught through lectures, seminars and weekly screenings of case study films.

British Cinema

1. Alfred Hitchcock and silent British cinema - Blackmail (Hitchcock, 1929)

2. Melodrama and war - Brief Encounter (Lean, 1945).

3. Fantasy and artifice - The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger, 1948)

4. Film comedy and Ealing studios - The Ladykillers (Mackendrick, 1955)

5. Social commentary and repression - Victim (Dearden, 1961)

Educational Aims

This module aims to develop students’:

• Knowledge of a selection of historically important works, institutions and events within the field of film
• Understanding of the historically variable social significance of film
• Understanding of selected medium-specific conventions through which meaning is made and conveyed in film
• Knowledge and understanding of relevant critical and theoretical debates regarding film

Assessment Proportions

• 100% coursework

LICA102H: Fundamentals: Film (part 2)

• Terms Taught:
  • Lent / Summer Terms Only
  • For the Full Year option, you will need to take LICA101 module. 
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 8 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites:
  • No Pre-requisite
  • For full year option, student will need to specialise in either Film, Theatre or Art (Design is not available in this instance)
  • You will not be able to take LICA102, if you have not studied LICA101 in Michaelmas Term
  • You will be required to take LICA102G

Course Description

Weeks 16-20 will be taught through a combination of lectures and seminars. Weeks 21-25 will consist of independent study with tutorial support.

British Cinema

• 16. James Bond and the blockbuster franchise - You Only Live Twice (Gilbert, 1967)
• 17. British crime films - Get Carter (Hodges, 1971)
• 18. Horror and the occult - The Wicker Man (Hardy, 1973)
• 19. Art and politics - Jubilee (Jarman, 1978)
• 20. Asian British cinema - Bhaji on the Beach (Chadha, 1994)
• Weeks 21-25: Independent study

Educational Aims

This module aims to develop students’:

• Knowledge of a selection of historically important works, institutions and events within the field of film
• Understanding of the historically variable social significance of film
• Understanding of selected medium-specific conventions through which meaning is made and conveyed in film
• Knowledge and understanding of relevant critical and theoretical debates regarding film

Assessment Proportions

• 100% coursework

LICA150: Introduction to Film Studies

• Terms Taught:
  • Full Year course
  • Michaelmas Term only
  • Lent / Summer Terms only
• US Credits:
  • Full Year - 10 Semester Credits
  • Michaelmas Term Only - 5 Semester Credits
  • Lent / Summer Terms Only - 5 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits:
  • Full Year - 20 ECTS Credits
  • Michaelmas Term Only - 10 ECTS Credits
  • Lent / Summer Terms Only - 10 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites: No Pre-requisite.

Course Description

The syllabus has three key elements: the first provides you with an understanding of the formal and technical composition of a broad variety of films. Through analysis of examples ranging from mainstream entertainment films to experimental texts, and from early cinema through to the present, you will become familiar with the key formal and semantic conventions of cinema. Through a focus on a selection of key films and filmmakers, the second part will explore historically significant movements and themes within international cinema from the 1920s to the present. You will then employ the historical knowledge and analytical/research skills you have developed to undertake an independent research project studying a genre, filmmaker, or film movement of your choice. You will have the opportunity to produce either a written text or a multimedia object or to produce a short film (with the technical support of the LUTV unit). [This option is only available for those students taking the course for the full year or for the Lent and Summer terms.]

Educational Aims

This module aims to develop students':

• Knowledge of selected historically important international films, film-makers and movements
• Understanding of the historically variable social significance of film
• Understanding of the audio-visual cinematic conventions through which meaning is made and conveyed
• Knowledge and understanding of selected critical, theoretical debates on cinema
• Basic skills of close analysis of film texts

Outline Syllabus

Michaelmas term:

• Film aesthetics: cinematography and the shot
• Film aesthetics: continuity editing and alternative approaches
• Film aesthetics: mise-en-scène
• Film aesthetics: performance
• Film aesthetics: classical narrative
• Film aesthetics: narrative and anti-narrative conventions
• Film aesthetics: sound
• Film aesthetics: genre

Lent term:

• Film history: The Nouvelle Vague - Godard, Truffaut
• Film history: Hong Kong Martial-Arts Cinema - Bruce Lee, Shaw Brothers
• Film history: 1980s Blockbuster Cinema and Authorship - Spielberg, Tony Scott
• Film history: Chinese Fifth Generation Cinema - Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou
• Film history: Feminist Cinema - Jane Campion, Sally Potter
• Film history: New German Cinema - Petzold, Herzog, Fassbinder
• Film history: British Social Realism - Loach, Shane Meadows

Summer term:

• Independent research project

Assessment Proportions

• Essay(s): 40%
• Exam: 40%
• Project: 20%

LICA190: Skills and Concepts in Drama, Theatre and Performance

• Terms Taught:
  • Full Year Course
  • Michaelmas Term only
• US Credits:
  • Full Year - 10  Semester Credits
  • Michaelmas Term Only - 5 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits:
  • Full Year - 20 ECTS Credits
  • Michaelmas Term Only - 10 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites: Tutor's permission needed to take this course.

Course Description

In Michaelmas and Lent terms, students will engage in a series of 3-week study blocks organised around a theme relating to aspects of theatre and performance (these might include, for example, themes of Space, Time, Audience, Text, etc). Through these thematic lenses, students will be introduced to a variety of forms and genres of drama, theatre, and performance in weekly 3-hour lecture/workshop sessions (examples might include dramaturgy, performance art, feminist theatre, disability theatre, etc). They will study an exemplary range of playscripts and performance theories from a variety of historical and cultural contexts, and explore these through practical activities that invite the application of key theoretical concepts. In addition, students will be introduced to lighting, sound, and other foundational practical skills through occasional training sessions incorporated into the regular teaching session. In the latter half of the second term, groups of students will begin to develop their own practical performance projects, which will be assessed in the summer term.

Educational Aims

The course aims to:

• Introduce some of the major theatrical movements that are understood to have affected the contemporary performance scene
• raise issues about the range of approaches to the production, analysis and reception of performance which have developed in theatre and performance at key historical moments
• equip students with a knowledge of different approaches to the analysis and production of performance
• introduce basic practical skills in the analysis and rehearsal of theatre scripts
• introduce basic practical skills in devising performances
• refer to major theatrical theories of performance, and interdisciplinary theories relevant to the analysis of performance
• encourage the vigorous practice of theory and the rigorous theorisation of practice

The general educational aims of this Part I module are to:

• introduce students to critical and historical thinking
• introduce students to basic research skills, both for written and practical work
• introduce students to academic writing and presentation skills, including structuring an argument and referencing sources
• equip students with skills in creative collaborative working

Outline Syllabus

Michaelmas Term:

• Week 1: Introduction to the Course
• Week 2: The Creation of the Modern Subject: Shakespeare's Hamlet
• Week 3: The Gendered Subject: Representations of Hamlet and Ophelia in Hamlet productions
• Week 4: Representing the Human Subject in a Scientific Age: Naturalism and Realism, Chekov's Cherry Orchard
• Week 5: Realist Performance: Stanislavski's approach to actor training
• Week 6: Performing the Socially Constructed Subject: The Aesthetics and Politics of Epic Theatre, Brechts The Good Person of Szechwan
• Week 7: Non-representational Theatre: Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty
• Week 8: The Subject in a Postmodern Context: Heiner Müller's Hamletmachine
• Week 9: Writing the Perfect Essay: Tips and Pointers
• Week 10: The Fragmented Subject in Postdramatic Theatre: Martin Crimps Attempts on her Life

Lent Term:

• Week 11: Modes of Performance in Devised Theatre
• Week 12: Uses of Space in Devised Theatre
• Week 13: Modes of Audience Engagement in Devised Theatre
• Week 14: Devising Dance and Physical Theatre
• Week 15: Media in Devised Theatre
• Week 16: Practical Project explained and groups set up
• Week 17: Groups working on Practical Project with supervisors
• Week 18: Groups working on Practical Project with supervisors
• Week 19: Group Presentations of Performance Concepts with Performed excerpts
• Week 20: Exam Revision, Feedback on Presentations and Production Meetings

Summer Term:

• Week 21: Groups work on Practical Projects, Exam Revision
• Week 22: Groups work on Practical Projects, Exam Revision
• Week 23: Groups work on Practical Projects
• Week 24: Groups work on Practical Projects
• Week 25: Assessed Performances of Practical Projects

Assessment Proportions

• Essay: 20%
• Practical Exam: 30%
• Presentation: 10%
• Written Exam: 40%

LICA200: Critical Reflections in Creative Arts

• Terms Taught:
  • Full Year Course
  • Michaelmas Term Only
  NOTE: If you are studying with us for a Full Academic Year and you select a course that has full year and part year variants, you will not be allowed to take only part of the course.
• US Credits:
  • Full Year Course - 8 Semester Credits
  • Michaelmas Term Only - 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits:
  • Full Year Course - 15 ECTS Credits
  • Michaelmas Term Only - 7.5 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites: Familiarity with twentieth century art history with a good understanding of the major movements and their aims. 

Course Description

LICA 200 will explore a number of key interdisciplinary philosophical and cultural concepts which will enable you to analyse, engage with, and reflect upon artworks in your own discipline, and to thus establish a common set of concepts which can be shared by students from all of the different subject disciplines in LICA. These interdisciplinary concepts will be referred to in Part II modules particular to LICA’s different subject domains, but also within the suite of new half-unit modules which can be taken by students from across of all LICA disciplines.

Educational Aims

This module aims to:

• Develop analytical and critical skills in the study of contemporary art and creative works (design objects, buildings, installations, paintings, sculptures; documentaries and films; sound works, scores and musical performances; and dance works, plays and theatre performances) relevant to each students specific subject discipline (Art, Film, Design,Theatre)
• Make students aware of analytical and critical skills specific to other subject disciplines
• Develop appreciation, knowledge and understanding of key theoretical concepts common to the analysis of all contemporary artworks from all artistic disciplines and forms.

Outline Syllabus

This course provides an introduction to critical theory in the arts and its application to aesthetics and art. The structure of the course is six three-week blocks, following an introductory lecture:

• Block 1. Aesthetics and Formalism: The lectures and workshops in this block will look at how we describe and analyse works of art, especially in relation to different art forms, and how different disciplines can learn from each other. Students are also introduced to the main developments in aesthetics, from Plato to Kant and onto various kinds of formalism and contemporary means of analysing artworks.
• Block 2. Phenomenology: The lectures and workshops in this block celebrate and consider the lived experience that artists and audiences have of an artwork, and in particular places bodily experience at the heart of the ways in which artworks attempt to understand the world. The sessions ask: what is the relationship between the viewer or listener who experiences an artwork and the artwork itself? What is the relation between intuition and concept? Is it possible to reflect on the pre-reflective sensations that a listener or viewer has of an artwork as it unfolds through time in the gallery, performance space or concert hall? The sessions test methods by which it is possible to describe how an artwork might distil the essential qualities of its source material, how it is possible to describe the viewers or listeners consciousness of that artwork, and the hidden meanings which are disclosed through both processes of description.
• Block 3. Semiotics, Structuralism and Deconstruction: The lectures and workshops in this block look at the idea of the artwork as a system of signification, using the principles of semiology (i.e. the science of signs). Originally applied to linguistics and anthropology, semiology offers a powerful set of tools with which to understand and engage with works of art in every discipline from the visual arts to music to dance and performance. More recently it has also come to inform the work of practitioners in all fields. No attempt to understand the debates and issues in contemporary arts can take place without a basic grasp of this area.
• Block 4. Class and Society: No attempt to understand contemporary culture and the arts can take place without engaging with the work and influence of Karl Marx. Though originally concerned mainly with questions of economics and politics, Marx's ideas have been employed in powerful ways as means of understanding the relation between art and broader social structures and relations. The lectures and workshops in this block introduce the most relevant concepts of Marxism and looks at some of the ways in which they have been used in relation to the arts in the work of authors such as Louis Althusser and David Harvey.
• Block 5. Feminism, Queer Theory and Gender: Among the more pressing questions asked by theorists in relation to art is how our experience of artworks, whether as producer or consumer, is inflected by gender and sexuality. Some of the most powerful analyses of art have been motivated by such questions. The lectures and workshops in this block will introduce students to the basic concepts underlying those analyses as well as some of the ways they have been mobilised in relation to art and culture.
• Block 6. On Difference: Questions of race and ethnicity, like those of gender and sexuality, have also become a means by which some of the presumptions underlying the arts have been questioned and deconstructed, especially as a reaction to the dominance of white, western cultural ideals. The lectures and workshops in this block engage with some of the principle debates and ideas in this area, especially as they relate to difference, race, and post-colonialism in art and culture.

Assessment Proportions

• Coursework: 50%
• Exam: 50%

LICA250: Documentary Film: History and Theory

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas Term Only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

The course traces the broad impact that documentary cinema has had on contemporary culture, examining a variety of documentary forms from the origins of cinema to the present. Assessment is by essays and class presentations.

Educational Aims

On successful completion of this module students will be able to demonstrate:

• Knowledge of documentary aesthetics, conventions and characteristic modes of address in documentary film
• The ability to apply realist and other critical theory to the analysis and evaluation of documentary texts
• A clear understanding of the context of documentary production and the ethical, institutional and technological considerations that inform it
• Fluency and skill in the research, planning and presentation of ideas in both academic writing and verbal presentation
• A critical understanding of key theoretical readings and films in relation to documentary film
• Demonstrate an understanding of the aesthetic, social, cultural and ethical contexts which inform documentary film

Outline Syllabus

Topics to be covered include:

1. What is Documentary?
2. Performative Documentary
3. Observational Cinema
4. Political and Social Rhetoric in Documentary
5. Documenting History
6. Fake Documentary
7. Documentary and the archive
8. Art and Documentary: intersections
9. Documentary and portraiture
10. Subjective documentary

Assessment Proportions

• Coursework: 100%

LICA251: Global Cinemas: Forms, Debates, Histories

• Terms Taught:
  • Full Year course
  • Michaelmas Term only
  • Lent / Summer Terms only
  NOTE: If you are studying with us for a Full Academic Year and you select a course that has full year and part year variants, you will not be allowed to take only part of the course.
• US Credits:
  • Full Year course - 8 semester credits
  • Michaelmas Term only - 4 semester credits
  • Lent / Summer Terms only - 4 semester credits
• ECTS Credits:
  • Full Year course - 15 ECTS
  • Michaelmas Term only - 7.5 ECTS
  • Lent / Summer Terms only - 7.5 ECTS

Course Description

This core module is designed to further develop your analytical skills in order to examine individual films in close detail and to encourage you to understand global cinema in a variety of social, cultural, political and industrial contexts. The module will explore such issues as the relationship between film form and modes of production, theories of film style and aesthetics, the political function of cinema. In the first term, we focus wholly on various modes of American film production and in the second term we explore some broader theoretical questions through an analysis of films from a number of different national traditions. Across the whole module you will gain a thorough grasp not only of the historical factors shaping various national cinemas, but also of some key critical and theoretical concepts within the field of film studies.

Assessment is by two 2,500-word essays (30% each) and examination (40%).

Educational Aims

This module aims to:

• Develop your analytical and critical skills in the study of film
• Develop your knowledge about the relationship between films and their cultural contexts
• Develop your knowledge about the history of world cinema
• Develop your knowledge of key theoretical concepts in Film Studies

Outline Syllabus

Term 1 (Michaelmas):

• The Hollywood Studio System - Dracula (Browning, 1930)
• Classical Hollywood cinema - Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942)
• B-Movies and exploitation films - Dragstrip Girl (Cahn, 1957)
• Hollywood auteurs - All that Heaven Allows (Sirk, 1955)
• The New American Cinema and Underground cinema - Shadows (Cassavetes, 1955)
• New Hollywood Cinema - The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973)
• Post-classical Hollywood cinema - Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981)
• American independent cinema - She’s Gotta Have It (Spike Lee, 1986)
• Digital cinema and convergence culture - The Matrix (Wachowski brothers, 1999)
• Franchises, remakes and reboots – Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Bird, 2011)

Term 2 (Lent):

• Neo-realism - The Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
• Japanese cinema – Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
• Indian cinema – Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)
• Spaghetti Westerns - A Fistful of Dollars (Leone, 1964)
• Counter-cinema and anti-realism - Performance (Roeg, Cammell, 1970)
• Senegalese post-colonial cinema – Touki Bouki (Mambety, 1973)
• The New German cinema - Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder, 1974)
• Hong Kong action cinema - The Killer (Woo, 1989)
• International art cinema and authorship - The Tango Lesson (Potter, 1997)
• Palestinian cinema - Salt of this Sea (Jacir, 2008)

Assessment Proportions

• Coursework: 60%
• Exam: 40%

LICA252: Film Theory

• Terms Taught: Lent / Summer Terms only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites: No Pre-requisite.

Course Description

This module focuses closely on the challenging aesthetic and critical debates surrounding the concept of modernity. It will look at films made in the silent era, in post-war Europe and the US. Key writings on film will be considered in conjunction with viewings of particular films, close analysis of specific filmic techniques and methods, and historical and theoretical approaches to film. The course will also pay attention to the debates within classical and contemporary film theory, feminist approaches and other critical traditions (semiotics, structuralism, formalism, cognitivism). Assessment is by a 3,000-word coursework essay and a two hour exam.

Educational Aims

• To facilitate students analysis of, and critical use of key theoretical concepts in the study of world cinema,with particular focus upon debates around cinematic modernism and its relationship to contemporary film and film theory.
• To facilitate an understanding of the ways in which the notions of modernity has been reassessed in recent years in the light of cinema
• To introduce and analyse historically important academic writers and critical texts in film theory.
• To introduce and analyse historically important films from world cinema history.
• To explore critically relationships between film, cultural and political change and identity.

Outline Syllabus

This third-year core course will add to the theoretical, historical and cultural aspects of film investigated in Years 1 and 2, while focusing more closely on the challenging aesthetic and critical debates surrounding the concept of modernity. It will look at films made in the silent era, in post-war Europe and in Britain and the US. Key writings on film will be considered in conjunction with viewings of particular films, close analysis of specific filmic techniques and methods, and historical and theoretical approaches to film. The course will also pay attention to the debates of classical and contemporary film theory, feminist approaches and other critical traditions (semiotics, structuralism, formalism, cognitivism). Building on the approach to film taken in LICA251 (Hollywood and Beyond: Global Cinema), this course focuses on film theory as students are introduced to key debates in classical and contemporary film theory, with topics exploring the relations between film and art, cinema and politics, cinema and psychoanalysis, and, above all, the question of how films produce meaning(s).

Indicative film list:

• The Last Laugh
• Rebel Without a Cause
• The Departed
• The Lady from Shanghai
• Vertigo
• Now, Voyager
• Stella Dallas
• Letter from an Unknown Woman

Learning, teaching and assessment strategy:

Teaching takes place in lectures and seminars with additional screening slots for film-viewing timetabled during the week.

Teaching and learning methods:

• Lectures: these are used to map broad ranges of material and to introduce key themes, approaches and points of debate
• Screenings: students will be exposed to a wide range of films
• Readings: students are expected to pursue material covered in lectures through their own independent reading, both of specific readings set for each course, and also through independent study
• Viewings: alongside the required screenings, students are expected to view independently as much additional film material as they can.
• Seminars: these provide an opportunity for students to explore further material covered in lectures and independent reading; they are often based on student-led presentations, leading on to student or staff-led discussion and debate
• Essays: in their written work, students will analyse, synthesise and critically assess material they have covered in their classes and through independent study

Assessment Proportions

• Coursework: 60%
• Exam: 40%

LICA257: Documentary Film Practice

• Terms Taught: Lent / Summer Terms Only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS
• Pre-requisites: Equivalent to LICA250

Course Description

Documentary Film Practice is a practice-based module in which small groups of students (3-7 students) make a short documentary video (between 5-7 minutes in length). The module builds on knowledge acquired in LICA250 Documentary Cultures, which focuses on the history, theory and stylistic qualities of documentary. By undertaking a practical video project in Documentary Film Practice students are expected to apply theoretical knowledge gained in LICA250 to a practical project. As well as applying theory to practice, the module aims to enhance students' video-making skills, with specific training provided for camera operation, sound recording and editing skills. Students will also gain skills in terms of working in groups.

Outline Syllabus

• Week 1: a 2-hour training session on video camera operation, lighting and sound training + 2-hour workshop on documentary theory (on Documentary Modes of Representation) and initial project planning. Lecture content in these workshops will draw on material taught in LICA250 but with an emphasis on filmmaking practice. Groups will be formed in this workshop via a 2-stage selection process: (1) via a survey of specific interests according to camera operation, sound recording, scriptwriting or editing (computer software) skills, so that a range of skills can be distributed across groups; and (2) where no specific individual skills are determined, via a random ballot.

• Between weeks 1 and 2 all groups are expected to meet independently for at least one hour to discuss and plan their video projects.
• Week 2: a 2-hour training session on video editing + 2-hour workshop on documentary theory (Anthropological and Archival trends in documentary) and project planning. Lecture content in these workshops will draw on material taught in LICA250 but with an emphasis on filmmaking practice. Progress of projects will be discussed, with emphasis placed on scriptwriting, background research, location scouting and contacting of potential participants prioritised at this stage of the process. All group supervisors must attend the project planning element of the workshop (this will occur during the second hour of the workshop). Finally, aspects of ethics will be covered during this week, and students will be advised on the necessary use of a permissions questionnaire when making their videos.

• Between weeks 2 and 3 all groups are expected to meet independently for at least one hour to discuss and plan their video projects.

• Week 3: A short filming and editing exercise + 2-hour workshop on documentary theory (Experimental Film and Documentary) and project planning. Lecture content in these workshops will draw on material taught in LICA250 but with an emphasis on filmmaking practice. The lecture will also include guidance on the final written projects of the module (a 2000 word evaluative essay). This will make clear to students that their practical projects must have a basis in theory and that their final essays will involve a reflection on the integration between theory and practice. Progress of projects will be discussed in the workshop session, with emphasis again placed on scriptwriting, background research, location scouting and contacting of potential participants prioritised. Groups must be made aware that they are expected to begin filming their projects in the following week. All group supervisors must attend the project planning element of the workshop (this will occur during the second hour of the workshop). Each group's short video exercise for this week will be formatively assessed by the group's supervisor at the end of week 3 (rooms will need to be booked for this assessment to occur).

• Weeks 4-7: Filming of video: in groups of between 3 and 7 students, filming of video projects will be undertaken over four weeks under the supervision of a member of LICA's academic staff. Groups must meet with their supervisor for a minimum of 1 hour each week. Video and sound recording equipment can be booked from LUTV.

• Weeks 8-10: Editing of video: in groups, students will edit their videos in the editing suites at LUTV. This will be carried out under the supervision of a member of LICA's academic staff. Groups must meet with their supervisor for a minimum of 1 hour per week.

• Group video projects are to be submitted at the end of week 10 of the Lent term.

Assessment Proportions

• Coursework: 50%
• Project: 50%

LICA258: Women Film Makers

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas Term only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS
• Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

The module will explore the work of some of the most historically important female film-makers from the 1890s through to the present, considering films from around the globe. The module will examine the significant but often marginalized and obscured roles that women have played in industrial, experimental and avant-garde film production across a spectrum of roles from costume and production designers through to screen-writers, editors and directors. You will be invited to reflect upon the fact that, despite playing key roles in the development of the medium, women continue to be excluded at all levels of film production.

The module will engage with revisionist film histories concerned with interrogating the dominant bias of academic and popular histories of the medium; it will also draw on feminist film theory concerned both with a critical understanding of mainstream cinema and the development of politicized women’s cinemas. The module will examine a series of key female directors and their work, and each week will be oriented around the screening of a case study film that will be the focus for the seminar.

Assessment Proportions

• Coursework: 50%
• Exam: 50%

LICA301: Creative Enterprise

• Terms Taught: Full Year Course
• US Credits: 8 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 15 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites: This is a strict quota course, and there will be only a limited number of places (if any) available to visiting students.

Course Description

This course aims to enable you to develop a critical understanding of the way in which your creative practice can be located within the cultural and creative economy. It also aims to develop your understanding of the world of professional practice and reflect academically on the key issues facing arts practitioners in the production and circulation of cultural products. It explores how the cultural/creative economy impacts on the production and circulation of freelance practitioners artistic products within relevant cultural, social and political contexts. It also develops the creative, entrepreneurial and management skills involved in devising and delivering and evaluating a viable creative arts project. Assessment is 30% essay, 40% group project and 30% reflective report.

Educational Aims

This module will enable students to develop a critical understanding of the way in which their creative practice can be located within the cultural and creative economy. It will aim to develop their understanding of the world of professional practice and reflect academically on the key issues facing arts practitioners in the production and circulation of cultural products. The main aims of the module are: -

• To develop an understanding of how the cultural/creative economy impacts on the production and circulation of freelance practitioners artistic 'products'.
• To enable students to develop an understanding of the value of their own creative ideas within relevant cultural, social and political contexts.
• To develop students' understanding of the entrepreneurial and management skills and processes involved in devising and delivering creative projects.
• To develop students' ability to develop, deliver and evaluate a viable creative arts project.

Outline Syllabus

Teaching on this module is through seminars and workshops, with associated reading. A significant proportion of the teaching is delivered in the context of students developing their own arts projects (e.g. show, exhibition, or other public dissemination or public arts service). Ideally these projects will take place in the Lent or Summer terms although the important learning exercise is in the planning, simulation and evaluation.

The following topics will be covered:

• The creative entrepreneur - the circulation of culture; curatorship and producing
• Key issues in contemporary cultural policy/the music industry
• New arts ventures; understanding and working with stakeholders
• Audience and market research
• Developing a marketing strategy
• Funding and financing arts projects; pricing and budgeting
• Project planning and evaluation, logistics.

Assessment Proportions

• Essay: 30%
• Group Work: 40%
• Reflective Report: 30%

LICA351: Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas Term only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS Credits
• Pre-requisites: No Pre-requisite.

Course Description

Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema focuses on the mid-1980s up to the present day; an era whose beginning witnesses the international breakthrough of the local new wave filmmakers and which goes on to encompass the early 1990s production surge, the 1997 handover to mainland China and the crippling economic crisis. The course explores a number of basic industrial, aesthetic, social and cultural trends marking Hong Kong films in the contemporary era. These include the emergence and impact of independent production; the importance and cross-marketing of star performers and local musical traditions such as Cantopop; the popularity of genres like the crime thriller; and aesthetic trends such as episodic plotting and the narrative thematisation of politics and identity. The course also examines Hong Kong's distinct art cinema, whose presence and success on the international festival circuit has brought artistic credibility to a predominantly popular cinema. Assessment is by one 5,000-word essay.

Educational Aims

This module aims to:

• Provide students with an understanding of the factors and trends marking contemporary Hong Kong cinema;
• Acquaint students with the key critical issues and debates which have recently proliferated around Hong Kong filmmaking;
• Apprise students of representative Chinese films from the contemporary era, and with critical and theoretical studies of individual filmmakers, pertinent genres and styles, and the cinema of Hong Kong in general.

Outline Syllabus

Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema takes as its broad focus Hong Kong cinema in the era running from the mid-1980s up to the present day; an era whose beginning witnesses the international breakthrough of the local new wave filmmakers, and which goes on to encompass the early 1990s production surge, the 1997 handover to mainland China, the crippling economic crisis, and the outbreak of the SARS virus.

The broad purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of a number of basic industrial, aesthetic, social and cultural trends marking Hong Kong films in the contemporary era. These include the emergence and impact of independent production; the rise of high-concept filmmaking; the movement toward pan-Asian co-productions; the importance and cross-marketing of star performers and local musical traditions such as Cantopop; the popularity of genres like the crime thriller; and aesthetic trends such as episodic plotting, the assimilation of Hollywood storytelling techniques, and the narrative thematisation of politics and identity.

Emphasis will be placed not only on representative mainstream product, but also on the emergence of a distinct Hong Kong art cinema, whose presence and success on the international festival circuit has brought artistic credibility to a predominantly popular cinema, and which has heralded the arrival of a new wave of local auteur filmmakers.

Indicative module content:

• Introducing the Last Golden Era
• The Second Wave
• An Excessively Obvious Cinema
• 1997 and the Culture of Disappearance
• Hong Kong Art Cinema
• The Rise of the Independents
• Industry in Crisis
• High concept in Hong Kong
• Johnnie To and Milkyway Image
• New (and Old) Directions

Assessment Proportions

• Essay: 100%

LICA358: African American Cinema

• Terms Taught: Lent / Summer Terms only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS Credits

Course Description

This module explores the history and theory of African American cinema, primarily since the 1950s, focusing on the complicated relationship between this filmmaking tradition and mainstream (Hollywood) projections of blackness. Chronologically organized, it starts with the work of Oscar Micheaux and the ‘race films’ of the 1920s and 1930s (as responses to the racist epic, Birth of a Nation, ending with films made in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement. On the way to the 21st century, students examine the rise of independent (‘L.A. Rebellion’) and blaxploitation cinema (partly as a response to the cross-over stardom of Sidney Poitier and limited mainstream representation for African Americans) in the contexts of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, the rise of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s, and the political disillusionment of the 1970s. These contrasting legacies are connected to the rise of hip hop cinema in the 1980s and 1990s.

Educational Aims

This module aims to:

• Provide students with an understanding of the issues that have defined the evolution of African American cinema
• Impart knowledge of key African American films - especially since the 1950s
• Develop understanding of the formal and stylistic significance of these films
• Develop understanding of the thematic significance of these films
• Develop understanding of these films’ historical importance
• Develop understanding of the conditions of production, distribution, exhibition and reception of these films
• Engage students with the critical debates surrounding African American filmmaking - especially in relation to mainstream representations of African Americans
• Develop understanding of African American filmmaking in the context of different socio-political movements since the 1950s in the struggle for equality

Indicative course outline:

• White screens/black images: The cultural legacy of ‘Jim Crow’ - Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915)
• Talking b(l)ack: Silent ‘Race Films’ and the independent cinema of Oscar Micheaux - Within Our Gates (Micheaux, 1920)
• Doing the Hollywood shuffle: All-colored cast Musicals - Stormy Weather (Stone, 1943)
• Revolting cinema, or ‘the Brothers vs the Ebony Saint (Poitier)’: From civil rights to Black Power cinema - Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles, 1971)
• Blaxploitation: Soundtracks with pictures - Super Fly (Parks, Jr., 1972)
• The L.A. Rebellion: An alternative black aesthetic - Julie Dash’s matriarchal vision - Daughters of the Dust (Dash, 1991)
• Spike Lee and a commercial black aesthetic: Rise of a hip hop nation - Do the Right thing (Lee, 1989)
• Gangsta ‘realism’: Black redundancy after Rodney King - Boyz N the Hood (Singleton, 1991)
• Beyond heteronormative blackness: LGBT+ race in the age of Black Lives Matter - Pariah (Rees, 2011)
• Still Dealing with Whiteness: The Contradictory Power of Masquerade - Sorry to Bother You (Riley, 2018)

MCS.210: Digital Cultures

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas Term only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 8 ECTS
• Pre-requisites: Two semesters of sociology.

Course Description

This course explores the question of how information and communications technologies, in their multiple forms, figure in our everyday lives. The aim of the course is to develop an appreciation of the range of experiences affected by digital media, including the progressive expansion of life online and the increasingly intimate relations between life online and offline. We’ll explore global divisions of digital labour; the rise of the military entertainment complex; e-waste; social media, social movements and hactivism. The course will consider the new possibilities that the changing social infrastructure of digital technologies afford, while also learning to look at the rhetoric and practices of the ‘network society’ with a questioning and critical eye. Throughout the course we’ll be attentive to issues of gender, race and other marks of ‘sameness and difference’ as they operate among humans, and between humans and machines.

Educational Aims

This course aims to give students:

• A better understanding of sociological analysis of information cultures and on-line sociality
• Familiarity with key theoretical debates on cybercultures
• Improved skills in reading and applying various theoretical approaches to information cultures
• Improved skills and confidence in contributing effectively and positively in academic debate

Outline Syllabus

The course has four parts: introduction, identities, communities and transnational contextualising. These themes will introduce you to some key debates on information cultures in Western societies.

• Introduction (weeks 1-3): The first three weeks will be dedicated to looking at the history and the development of concepts such as cyberspace, cyberbody, virtuality and life on-line.
• Identities (weeks 4-6): The next three lectures will look at the ways gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality are constituted on-line.
• Communities (weeks 7-8): These two lectures will look at the ways a sense of community can be created, negotiated, disrupted or ruined in various forms of on-line interaction.
• Transnational contextualising (weeks 9-10): The last two weeks will contextualise internet cultures in a transnational perspective.

Assessment Proportions

• Dissertation: 80%
• Written Assessment: 20%

or

• Coursework: 50%
• Exam: 30%
• Written Assessment: 20%

MCS.224: Media and Visual Culture

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas Term only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS
• Pre-requisites: Two semesters of sociology.

Course Description

Everyday life is often described as bombarding us with images, and contemporary culture is therefore frequently understood as a visual culture. But what do such statements actually mean? How far is our culture a visual culture? What role does media play in a visual culture? How is vision linked to practices – including representation, the gaze and embodiment – of power and inequality? In what ways might these practices be challenged or resisted? Does vision only involve seeing, or is visual culture multi-sensory? This course will introduce theories and practices that have addressed these questions.

Educational Aims

The aim of this module is to introduce and examine recent and ongoing themes in Media and Cultural Studies and Sociology. It will provide students with an opportunity to:

• Compare and contrast competing and complementary critical perspectives on vision and visuality, media and culture;
• Develop a sophisticated understanding of theories and practices of visual culture;
• Express, discuss and debate complex ideas and abstractions in a confident and coherent manner;
• Develop a sophisticated understanding of studies of visual culture.

Outline Syllabus

This module will cover topics including:

• The relationship between vision and knowledge;
• The gaze and power (eg the gaze as gendered and raced);
• Media, representation and identity;
• Technologies of vision;
• Material practices of vision;
• Vision as multi-sensory.

Assessment Proportions

• Coursework: 75%
• Group montage: 25%

MCS.303: Social Media and Activism

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas Term only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS
• Pre-requisites: Five semesters of sociology; two may be from cognate disciplines such as anthropology or social psychology.

Course Description

Pro-democracy revolutionaries, internet freedom hackers, feminist mediasmiths, anti-capitalists, anti-corporate globalization activists, racial equality actors, indigenous rights workers, data leakers, and others use the internet to distribute their ideals and organize their social movements. In this fast-paced, participatory, and creative module students will execute their own social movement. This hands-on course invites students to work together and design, implement, and reflect upon their own political campaign. Each week we will discuss social movement theories and student social movement experiences to better understand how social movements form and use communication technologies. Students will interrogate their efforts to make political change through two group presentations, group website creation, group social media use, group video production, and a group-written annual report

Educational Aims

On successful completion of this module students will be able to:

• Explain how the basic architecture of the internet and the affordances of social media impact the organization of social movements;
• Understand the role of the nation state in internet policy
• Explain how business expectations for the internet and social media help or hinder the development of social movements.

Outline Syllabus

The module sessions cover the background and overview of the internet as a socio-technical system and looks at some of the tensions and contradictions that structure the cultural and politics of the internet. The module draws on specific, often ethnographically informed, cases of cultures using the internet in forms of political actions.

This module will include weekly topics that draw from the following:

• Who Built the Internet
• Hippies Built the Internet
• Hackers Built the Internet
• Reinterpreting the History of the Internet
• Cool Start-Up Work
• Geographies of the Internet
• Digital Labour: You are working while you are on Facebook?
• The Social and Ecological Cost of Convergence
• Politics or Profit of Platforms
• What the Internet is Hiding From Us
• Myth of Digital Democracy
• Leaks and Spins: WikiLeaks
• Anonymous and Hackivist
• The Internet and Arab Spring Revolutions
• Occupy Movement and Media
• Pirate Culture, Twitter, Hacktivist, and WikiLeaks

Assessment Proportions

• Practical: 50%
• Presentation: 20%

MKTG232: Advertising

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas Term only
• US Credits: 4 Semester Credits
• ECTS Credits: 7.5 ECTS credits
• Pre-requisites: You must show evidence of previous studies in Marketing.

Course Description

The overall aim of this course is to develop an appreciation and understanding of the fast-moving and multi-faceted world of advertising from both a theoretical and managerial perspective. This course will focus on advertising within the private sector and will cover a number of contemporary issues in advertising, including social and ethical issues, international advertising and advertising regulation. On completion of this course, students should be able to demonstrate a clear understanding of advertising theory, strategy and execution. You will meet in a series of 5 workshops over the term.

Educational Aims

• Provide students with an understanding of advertising from both a theoretical and practitioner perspective.
• Provide an understanding of the various roles and tasks performed in advertising agencies with a particular focus on account planning, media planning and the creative department (copywriters and art directors).

• Provide insights into the evolving and complex nature of contemporary advertising and consider advertising as a force for good vs. a force for bad in society.

Outline Syllabus

This module will introduce the student to the study of advertising from both a theoretical and managerial perspective.

The key areas covered will be:

• Traditional media and media planning
• Advertising strategy and account planning
• Creativity in advertising
• Celebrity endorsement
• Advertising persuasion
• International / global advertising
• Contemporary, social, ethical and regulatory Issues in advertising
• Advertising audiences

Assessment Proportions

• Coursework: 100%

The coursework is made up of two assignments: a group pitch and an individual essay worth 50% each.