EUR3520 - Filming the Nation: (Re)Configuring European National Myths

Leader: Millicent Vladiv-Glover

Offered

Not offered in 2007

Synopsis

This subject seeks to analyse the ways in which cinema has responded to post-war, post-colonial and post communist crises of national identity. It examines those crises in a number of countries of western and eastern Europe and, through the study of representative films, analyses the ways in which cinema has (re-)figured national identity, constructing, challenging and reconstructing its myths.

Objectives

On completion of this unit students will have

1. gained an understanding of political and social crises in western and eastern Europe which have constituted crises of national identity in which national ideologies and myths have foundered and out of which new national ideologies and myths have been forged;
2. gained an understanding of competing concepts of ideology, myth and national identity;
3. gained an understanding of competing definitions of the relationship between cultural production and ideology, myth and national identity;
4. applied those understandings to develop critical analysis of representative films of various European national cinemas;
5. practised and developed skills in oral and written exposition, argument, analysis and critique;
6. developed research skills in cultural and critical theory and film studies.

Assessment

2 seminar papers 3000 words 30%, Essay 3500 words
40%, Take-home exam 2.5 hours 30%

Contact hours

3 hours per week

Prohibitions

EUR4520