Course schedule for the Interdisciplinary Studies for Liberal Studies Certificate Program, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

Course Schedule

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LIT 492-DL : Special Topics in Lit: Cinephilia and Creative Critical Writing

Description

Cinephilia—that passionate and often irrational attraction we have to films—often manifests itself in specific “moments,” or even specific shots, in a film. What is it about those moments that seize us on every level; and how can we begin to describe this experience in ways that are faithful to the film’s textual system? This course attempts to explore these questions in a detailed and rigorous way. As Tim Corrigan puts it in his new book, “Describing Cinema” (one of the required texts for the course), we will be engaged with “the poetics of writing about film and the revelatory intersection of personal experience and film analysis.” In another recent (recommended) text, “One Shot Hitchcock,” a number of contemporary film scholars analyze single shots in Hitchcock: “These are the shots that resist being forgotten, that repeatedly demand to be investigated, in which Hitchcock's influence on aesthetics and culture is at its most acute.”

Each week, each student will write a short (750 word) exploration of a particularly gripping moment in the film of that week: these will be shared, and will form the basis for class discussion of the film. This focus on “moments” will force students to engage with the audiovisual elements of the films, over and above narrative or storyline, and thus to increase the sophistication of their film analyses.

Films likely to be studied include Vertigo, In the Mood for Love, The Conformist, Contempt, Do the Right Thing (or perhaps Spike Lee’s Malcolm X), Moonlight, Death in Venice, and others to be determined.

(This course may count towards the Film, Literature, and Visual Culture, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the Interdisciplinary Studies specialization in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program. Additionally, this course may count towards certificates of graduate studies.)

Note: This course meets weekly online.