BA Film Studies and History of Art / Course details

This course unit provides students with an introduction to key aesthetic movements and concepts in world cinema from the 1950s to the present across a range of cinemas. Lectures and seminar sessions explore the importance of New Wave cinemas in Europe and beyond, moving on to explore 'new' cinema movements in East Asia, North Africa and South America, and areas whose languages and cultures are studied in the School. Blackboard materials support the learning experience and offer students guidance on doing film studies in the context of the course.

• To provide students with an overview of aesthetic approaches and key themes in world cinema since the second world war
• To acquaint students with some of the social, political, cultural and academic debates that accompany those representations/approaches
• To equip students with the necessary analytical and critical skills to analyse the corpus films and evaluate representational and aesthetic strategies deployed by filmmakers 

• Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the aesthetic and cultural approaches in world cinema since the end of the second world war
• Evidence an ability to critically analyse films and evaluate their approach to portraying their themes in the light of local aesthetic and cultural debates
• Demonstrate an awareness of how approach impact representational strategies and aesthetics

• Demonstrate an ability to make connections between concepts, and apply these relationships in analysis and argument
• Demonstrate an ability to synthesise material from diverse sources, consider multiple and competing lines of argument, evaluate arguments of others, and revise approaches in response to feedback
• Demonstrate an ability to initiate and undertake critical analysis of the corpus films and to develop a line of argument in response

• Communicate understanding of course materials effectively in both speech (as evidenced through seminar participation) and writing (as evidenced by summative assessments)

• demonstrate an ability to communicate effectively with others about intellectually demanding concepts, topics, materials
• demonstrate an ability to draw with accuracy, focus, detail and precision on complex materials in independent and group work
• demonstrate an ability to effectively present – through discussion and in writing – complex topics, drawing convincingly on oral, written and visual media as appropriate to the topic

Chaudhuri, Shohini (2005) Contemporary World Cinema (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press).

Dennison, Stephanie and Song Hwee Lim (2006) ‘Situating World Cinema as a Theoretical Problem’, in Dennison and Lim (eds) Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in Film (London & New York, Wallflower Press): pp.1–15.

Ezra, Elizabeth and Terry Rowden (2006) ‘General Introduction: What Is Transnational Cinema?’, in Ezra and Rowden (eds) Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader (London and New York, Routledge): pp.1–12.

Higbee, Will and Song Wee Lim (2010) ‘Concepts of Transnational Cinema: Towards a Critical Transnationalism in Film Studies’, Transnational Cinemas 1(1): pp.7–21.

Kuhn, Annette and Grant, Catherine ‘Screening world cinema,’ in: Screening World Cinema: a Screen Reader, ed. Annette Kuhn and Catherine Grant. London: Routledge 2006, pp. 3-13.

Nagib, Lúcia (2006) ‘Towards a Positive Definition of World Cinema’, in Dennison and Lim (eds) Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in Film (London & New York, Wallflower Press): pp.30–7.