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The Craft of Writing – Film Focus – Subverting the Archive: The Art of Reappropriation
R1B 004 | CCN: 29098
Location: Dwinelle 134
Date and Time: TU, TH 2:00pm - 3:29pm
4 Units
Whether used as humor, critique or recovery, appropriation and found footage practices continue to influence our relationship to the past by constantly placing our understanding of pastness in flux. Considering various methods of appropriation using found footage, simulation, and remixing, this course will consider appropriation as a subversive device within feminist and postcolonial thought, and critical race theory. To do so, we will examine critical and theoretical texts on the archive to understand how we explore the past to imagine alternative futures. Considering subversion as a critical tool to re-engage with the past, this course will cover various topics such as spectatorship, authorship, ethics, and cultural appropriation through moving image practices, contemporary art exhibitions, and films. As such, the course will focus on exploring the archive, both physical and online, as a site of potentiality and active thinking.
Functioning as the second half of the Reading & Comprehension series, the primary goal of this course will be to develop your research skills, analytical writing, reading, and thinking. We will closely engage with texts and case studies to better understand their arguments and strengthen your original ideas. The course will involve rigorous class discussions, group activities, writing workshops, and reading responses. You will also develop your ability to critique and do peer reviews. By the end of this course, you will learn to conduct meaningful research, strengthen your analytical skills, create stronger arguments by considering the larger questions and issues raised in the class, and provide critical feedback to your peers.