MPhil and MLitt modules
With the exception of FM5001, a mandatory year-long module, we cannot offer every module each semester; please check with your adviser or Film Studies for available modules when registering. We continue to add modules so please check back on this page, or view individual staff pages for teaching information.
FM5001 | FM5099 | FM5101 | FM5201 | FM5202 | FM5205 | FM5210 | FM5211 | FM5212 | FM5213 | FM5217 | FM5218
FM5001 Theory & Practice of Research in Film Studies
60 credits
This module seeks to provide the kind of sophisticated theoretical and research skills training now regarded as indispensable for all postgraduates. It has both theoretical and methodological orientation and aims at teaching the students to correlate adequately conceptual frameworks and research designs. Its aim are to (a) debate and enrich our common concepts of reading and analyzing cinematic texts and contexts, by providing a range of different perspectives on film theory and methodology of criticism and various approaches to cinematic research, and (b) offer high-quality training related to methodology which stresses various aspects of conceiving, pursuing, organizing, and successfully completing research projects in film studies.
| Semester: | Whole Year |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour seminar. |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5099 Dissertation for M.Litt. programme
60 credits
Student dissertations will be supervised by members of the teaching staff who will advise on the choice of subject and provide guidance throughout the research process. The completed dissertation of not more than 15,000 words must be submitted by the end of August.
| Time: | At times to be arranged with the supervisor. |
| Teaching method: | Individual Supervision. |
| Prerequisites: | An average grade of at least 13.5 in course work. |
| Assessment: | Dissertation = 100% |
FM5101 Transnational Cinema & Narrative Convention
30 credits
This specialist module will introduce students to important recent developments in the study of cinema. At the centre of investigation will be the evolving discourse on cinema as a profoundly transnational form of cultural expression and its correlation with a range of diverse cultural practices, inter-cultural interaction, and cross-cultural representation. A number of sessions will look at issues at the intersection of transnational film historiography, cultural production and established narrative conventions. Students will become familiar with key critical texts pursuing the discourse on transnationalism (such as Shohat, Appadurai, Ang, Naficy), will be exposed to diverse cinematic material, and will have the opportunity to engage in original research and writing.
| Availability: | Not available 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 1 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour seminar. |
| Follow-on modules: | FM5301 |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5201 Deleuze & Transnational Cinema
30 credits
This module uses the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to examine issues surrounding transnational cinema. It introduces a range of established theories within the field of Film Studies (such as national cinema, national identity and third cinema), and explores how Deleuze's work can question our use of these previously defined concepts. It contains a significant focus on Deleuze's philosophy of narrative time, and the ways in which this can be applied to recent transnational films from different parts of Europe and Asia. The module also explores how Deleuze's work can uncover the sensory functioning of various diasporic and/or intercultural cinemas, and questions whether this type of transnational cinema can now be considered a genre in its own right. Films discussed typically include Ousmane Sembene's Borom Sarret (1996), Peter Mullan's Orphans (1997), Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991), Greg Araki's Doom Generation (1995), Atom Egoyan's Calendar (1995) and Anh Hung Tran's The Scent of Green Papaya (1993).
| Availability: | Not available 2010-11 |
| Semester: | 2 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour seminar. |
| Follow-on modules: | FM5302 |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5202 Heritage Cinemas in the Global Context: The Aesthetics & Politics of Period Film
30 credits
This module examines the contemporary period film as a versatile object of study through the dual prism of film theory and the heritage debates. From the late 1970s to the early 2000s, the international success of films such as Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Belle Ipoque (1992), Howards End (1992), Orlando (1992), The Piano (1993), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Russian Ark (2002), and the subsequent emergence of new critical paradigms around the so-called 'heritage cinemas' have pushed contemporary period drama to the centre stage of the debates about cultural identity and the representation of the national past. The 'heritage film' has been broadly associated with nostalgia and the rise of retro styles in postmodern cultures. However, these films have also been the subject of provocative explorations into the ways they re-inscribe gender, class and post-colonial identities. Theoretical questions such as the relationship between figurality and narrative; spatial and temporal displacement; adaptation and intertextuality, or psychoanalytical approaches to memory and fantasy are explored in the context of the current debates around the role of heritage cinemas in the international film scene, with special reference to the complex articulation of European indentities within a globalised image market.
| Availability: | Not available 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 2 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour seminar. |
| Follow-on modules: | FM5303 |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5205 Displaced Identities: Transnational Film Auteur in Cultural Contexts
30 credits
This specialist module aims at introducing students to a range of important film directors, from Czechoslovakia to India, and to discuss the contextual and transnational issues surrounding their work. While the debate around auteur theory will form an essential part of the conceptual framework for the study of the films, special emphasis will be placed on issues of migrancy, dislocation, nationality, diaspora, and the search for identity. This module also seeks to draw attention to the historical and economic factors which have marginalized certain cinematic traditions and their filmmakers. Students will be exposed to diverse film material, will read key theoretical texts on the topics discussed, and will have the opportunity to engage in original research and writing.
| Availability: | Not available 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 1 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | Two hour seminar. |
| Follow-on modules: | FM5304 |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5210 Directed Reading in Film Studies
30 credits
The directed reading project is designed to encourage the development of skills in Film Studies through concentrated study of a topic chosen by the students. The project offers the student the opportunity to develop skills of research, analysis and presentation under expert, individualised supervision. As Such, it will serve as a useful transition between the more structured teaching that characterized undergraduate work and the independence of postgraduate dissertations. Students will be allocated to a member of staff according to their chosen topic. They will then meet with their supervisor for six fortnightly tutorials to discuss the targeted reading they will have undertaken. The module will be assessed by means of a single bibliographical essay of around 5000 words, or by two shorter essays totaling the same length.
| Availability: | Not available 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 1 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | Fortnightly tutorials. |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5211 Transnational Cinema in the Digital Age
30 credits
This module provides an examination of how digital technology has on a global scale transformed every aspect of the film industry, and of how these transformations have subsequently affected film studies. For digital technology (computers, cameras, etc) has shaped not just the Hollywood film industry, but all film industries everywhere, at all stages of film production, distribution and exhibition, and in all genres. The module will take in a range of films and other texts from different regions, including the USA, Europe and Asia, straddling big budget spectacles, costume dramas, documentaries, games and more.
| Availability: | Not available 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 1 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour lectures. |
| Follow-on modules: | FM5308 |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5212 Transnational Reception of Cinema
30 credits
This module will provide students with a solid grounding in how cinema is received around the globe. To this end, the module will take in psychoanalytic spectatorship theory, together with the various approaches that this spawned (particularly challenges from theorists of gender, race, and sexuality), studies of audience reception, and cognitive approaches to cinema, in particular the trend towards the cinematic application of cognitive neuroscience. By comparing how different films are understood differently in different parts of the globe, students will gain an appreciation of the diverse and potentially transnational aspects of film reception.
| Availability: | Not available 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 1 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour lectures. |
| Follow-on modules: | FM5307 |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5213 The Epic Film in Global Culture
30 credits
This module will provide students with an understanding of contemporary transnational film production, distribution, and reception by considering the epic film genre. Long considered a nation-centric form, epic cinema has become a crystallized example of transnational cultural production, making use of extensive international co-production and distribution arrangements, drawing on an international talent community, and attracting audiences in large numbers throughout the world. In this module, we will study the new articulation of the epic film as perhaps the first fully transnational film genre, while also considering the provenance of the epic as an expression of nationalist aspirations and imaginings. Students will read a variety of theoretical and historical studies in order to gain a broad, concrete understanding of contemporary film production and distribution, an appreciation of different cultural inflections governing the reception of films circulated in different national contexts, and a sense of how aesthetic form conveys messages that may be at odds with the ostensible themes of the work.
| Availability: | Not available 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 2 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour seminar. |
| Follow-on modules: | FM5306 |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5217 Scotland: Global Cinema
30 credits
This module examines filmmaking in Scotland since the 1990s. Providing first an introduction to existing debates surrounding cinematic representations of Scotland, the module then focuses on the various films made in Scotland by filmmakers from such countries as Scotland, England, the USA, Canada, India and France since the 1990s. Examining film production in Scotland in this way enables an interrogation of Scotland's position as a "global cinema" - both in terms of its status as a small national cinema that makes Scottish films which are consumed nationally and internationally, and as a node in the global film industry through which international flows of film finance, personnel and production flow. The manner in which Scotland is represented by these different filmmakers, their economic agendas and their target markets, provide a nuanced appreciation of the many different types of cinematic Scotland that exist (often rendered as touristic, or fantasy Scotlands) and the varied identities (be they national, transnational, global/local, diasporic, etc) they allow different audiences to experience.
| Availability: | Not available 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 1 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour seminar plus screenings. |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |
FM5218 Documentary Cinema
30 credits
This module surveys the history of documentary film (technological, stylistic, etc.), while taking up the theoretical debates around cinematic claims to truth and representations of reality. Drawing on a robust selection of documentaries from around the world, students will examine how documentary differs from other kinds of filmmaking, how documentaries make 'truth claims', and how these claims influence the ways in which these films are received and circulated. Beginning with the actualities of the Lumiere Brothers, students will be exposed to multiple genres (e.g. ethnographic, civic, cinema verite, experimental, self-reflexive) and filmmakers (e.g. John Grierson, Dziga Vertov, Jean Rouch, Errol Morris) while addressing the variety of arenas (e.g. scientific, civic, commercial) in which documentary has appeared.
| Availability: | 2011-12 |
| Semester: | 2 |
| Time: | To be arranged. |
| Teaching method: | 2-hour seminar plus screenings. |
| Assessment: | Continuous Assessment = 100% |