This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Conceptualizing Film will provide students both with an in-depth examination of certain key issues in film theory, as well as approaching them (predominantly) from a distinct perspective associated with an emerging 'paradigm' of theory, namely ‘analytic philosophy of film’. The module will be organized around a series of sub-themes within the general domain of the philosophy of film, including emotion and film, the aesthetics and ethics of film, the nature of photographic and filmic representation, and the ways in which films might themselves act as vehicles for philosophical ideas. Throughout the course we will also consider the different styles of philosophy and their relationship to film theory. Seminars will stress the importance of examining arguments with care and rigour, and will introduce students explicitly to certain formal philosophical 'methods' of assessing arguments (eg. spotting question-begging, understanding distinctions such as that between entailment and implicature, the use of counterexamples and thought experiments). The ability to acquire and put to use such skills will be central in students achieving module objectives.
The module will be taught through screenings, lectures and seminars.
10 hours lectures, 20 hours seminars, 20 hours screenings.
Total contact over 12 weeks: 50 hours.
Average per week: 4 hours, 20 mins.
Total student ‘effort’ hours (including private study): 20 per week, 240 over 12 weeks.
100% coursework: 1,500-2,000 word exercise(30%); 5000 word essay (60%); Seminar performance (10%)
Allen, Richard and Murray Smith, Film Theory and Philosophy, Oxford, 1997
Arnheim, Rudolf, Film as Art, University of California Press, 1983 (2nd edition)
Carroll, Noel, Theorizing the Moving Image, Cambridge University Press, 1996
Mast, G and Cohen, M, Film Theory and Criticism, 2004 (5th edition)
Perkins, V.F., Film as Film, Penguin, 1993 (2nd edition)
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
By the end of the course, students will be able to
a) Critically analyse and make use of reading material and conceptual frameworks
b) Give sustained attention and concentration in order to examine the details of texts
c) Develop advanced skills of cogency, structure and presentation of arguments
d) Write and talk appropriately according to purpose; use wide vocabulary; use correct spelling, syntax and punctuation; express complex ideas, arguments and subtleties of meaning; select and shape language to achieve sophisticated effects
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