Undergraduate - UnitATS3583 - The Holocaust in film

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation
Offered	Clayton First semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Noah Shenker

Synopsis

This unit examines film as a source of historical evidence and inquiry, specifically exploring the historical, cultural, and ethical debates surrounding depictions of the Holocaust in film and other media. It considers the prospects of documenting and representing the Holocaust in a period marked by a decline in the numbers of living historical witnesses and survivors, but a proliferation of film and media portraying their experiences. Central to this unit are issues pertaining to the limits and possibilities of representing the Holocaust and to the larger challenges and opportunities of utilizing works of film and media as sources of history.

Outcomes

Students successfully completing this subject will be able to understand:

The nature of historical film and media in their various forms.
The criteria for assessing the merits of historical film and media, and the ways film and other media differ from other forms of historical representation.
The influence of film and media in the past and upon later historical understanding.
Ethical and historical considerations of the limits and possibilties of representing the Holocaust in particular and genocide and trauma more generally in film and media.
The ways in which film and media can extend and challenge our understanding of history as a discourse.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Noah Shenker

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Jewish studies
Holocaust and genocide studies
History
Film and screen studies

Prerequisites

Twelve credit points of second-year Arts units.

Prohibitions

ATS2583