Writing

Listed below are the writing courses offered in 2008, and at which site and session each course is offered. If you are unfamiliar with our site codes, please see the site key below. The course title links will take you to the appropriate catalog course description and links to sample syllabi for the course.

If you would like to read about science, humanities, or math and computer science courses, select the appropriate discipline in the following drop down menu.

Writing Course Offerings

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Session 1: June 26 - July 19, 2008
Session 2: July 19 - August 9, 2008

* = day site (no room or board provided)
** = international site (dates vary)

Site Key

* = day site (no room or board provided)
** = international site

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The proverb “variety is the spice of life” captures the approach to reading and writing in this course. Exploring a rich array of stories and poems from different cultures, countries, and generations, students learn to identify literary devices and incorporate them into their own writing.

For example, students might read Verna Aardema’s Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears: A West African Tale and then write their own pourquoi tales to explain a natural phenomena. They could incorporate comparison into their descriptions after observing how Marie Louise Allen effectively uses simile in her poem “First Snow,” or they could examine how Gary Soto’s short stories evoke the people and places of his childhood and base their own stories on the people and places they know best.

Class sessions are designed to allow students to experience the rich interplay of reading, writing, and conversation. For example, a morning may find students moving seamlessly from discussing an assigned story in small groups to writing reflective paragraphs to participating in independent reading of works they choose themselves. Or students could be asked to draft poems, share their poems with classmates, and participate in readers’ theater. Students leave the course with an appreciation for diverse genres and voices, as well as a sense of the many opportunities open to them as readers and writers.

Sample texts: Baseball in April and Other Stories, Soto; The Cow of No Color: Riddle Stories and Justice Tales from Around the World, Jaffe, Zeitlin, and Sherman; A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetry Forms, Raschka and Janeczko; materials compiled by the instructor.

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Writing and Reading Workshop

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Gathering together a community of young writers and readers, this course helps students develop the vocabulary and critical thinking skills necessary to discuss writing and reading in sophisticated ways. Students explore a range of reading and writing assignments, some of which they choose themselves with the instructor’s guidance.

Approximately half of each day is devoted to writing and half to reading. Writing is taught by having students do what professional writers d gather material, decide on topics, confer with peers, draft, workshop, and revise. Daily lessons and one-on-one conferences address writing skills from sentence construction to the use of imagery.

In reading workshops, students choose texts to read and respond to in their journals; they may also read short stories and novels to discuss as a class. Working with the instructor, students develop close reading skills and an appreciation for authors and genres that are new to them. Cooperative learning and constructive criticism are emphasized, and detailed responses from the instructor and peers play an essential role in each student’s growth as a reader and writer.

Sample texts: Independent reading assignments supplemented by instructor-selected short stories and novels; America Street: A Multicultural Anthology of Stories, Mazer; Esperanza Rising, Ryan; Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Taylor.

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Writing Workshop: Modern Fantasy

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Novelist Caroline Gordon once said, “A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.” Readers of modern fantasy are transported into magical worlds where people, places, and things are often not what they appear to be. Animals speak, toys come to life, and eccentric characters perform seemingly impossible feats. Worlds are turned upside down, and the familiar becomes the unknown.

In this course, students learn to identify the traits that characterize modern fantasy. They venture into extraordinary places such as Narnia in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and witness battles between good and evil like those that take place in Susan Cooper’s Over Sea, Under Stone. Students may read Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart and experience what might take place if characters could come alive from the pages of a book.

The course’s workshop approach affords many opportunities to engage in close reading, participate in informed discussion, and reflect upon what these fantastic worlds tell us about our own. In addition, students respond to modern fantasy texts in a variety of written assignments, including literary analysis and reflective writing. Armed with their newly developed understanding of the genre and an appreciation for its nuances, students then craft original pieces of fantasy.

Sample texts: The Black Cauldron, Alexander; The Golden Compass, Pullman; Redwall, Jacques; materials compiled by the instructor.

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Heroes and Villains

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Whether as the evil sultan of Moroccan legends, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, Dracula, or Darth Vader from Star Wars, the villain, like the hero, is an archetype who appears in literature, drama, and local lore across cultures and centuries. Narratives about heroes and villains are an important part of our shared traditions. Why do we create them, and what do they say about a society?

While the idea of a hero or villain is a concept familiar to all of us, closer investigations of the development of heroes and villains in literature often place them somewhere along the wide spectrum between good and evil, rather than at one end or the other. Through misunderstood villains such as Shelley’s Frankenstein and anti-heroes such as E. B. White’s Templeton the rat, students explore what it means to be a hero or villain, and how those terms have changed with time.

Examining the plots, characters, and themes from fiction, drama, fairy tales, and heroic myths, students gain the skills necessary for close textual reading and hone their abilities to respond in writing to works they read or see. Possible writing projects include narrating an example of heroism or villainy from students’ own experiences and rewriting a well-known story from the point of view of the villain instead of the hero.

Sample texts: Shane, Schaefer; Greek Gods and Heroes, Graves; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson; Dungeon Vol. 1: Duck Heart, Sfar and Trondheim; The Thief Lord, Funke.

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Writing and Imagination

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Writing is an act of imagination; it builds from the raw materials of life experience and encounters with language. Students in this course read, write, and discuss a variety of genres from poems and short stories to essays and articles. They are encouraged to approach writing as a craft and to discover the processes and techniques that writers in all genres share. For example, students learn strategies for generating ideas, and they explore the concept and techniques of point of view.

Based on the model of a writing community created in the graduate-level courses in Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars, this course brings together students and instructors who, as experienced writers themselves, serve as mentors to guide students through the process of creative writing. During writing workshops, both the instructor and peers offer detailed criticism geared toward revision. Through this process of writing, critiquing, and revising, students develop confidence in their own writing and creative powers.

Sample texts: Materials compiled by the instructor; a supplemental text such as The House on Mango Street, Cisneros, or Past Perfect, Present Tense: New and Collected Stories, Peck.

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Elements of Drama

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Samuel Johnson observes that “The stage but echoes back the public voice.” Plays provide us with unique opportunities for self and cultural reflection; they also represent a rigorous form of artistic expression that instructs as it entertains. This course examines the difference between language and action as it governs dramatic conventions and informs our cultural values and ideas.

This course introduces students to close reading techniques and literary arguments in order to develop their critical reading and writing skills. For example, students might interpret the storm scene that opens Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a metaphor for the tumultuous actions throughout the play. Students are also challenged to think imaginatively by writing and revising dramatic dialogues and their own scenes. In addition, students read literary criticism, such as Aristotle’s Poetics, and explore the development of the theater from its origins in Ancient Greece to the present.

Students receive a thorough introduction to the elements of drama: character and plot development, gestures and body language,  stage direction, costume, scenery, and lighting. As students research and write critical papers and explore dramatic conventions, instructors encourage them to expand their literary tastes and develop an individualized approach to literary study.

Note: This is not an acting class.

Sample texts: Death of a Salesman, Miller; Antigone, Sophocles; The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde; Twelfth Night, Shakespeare; The Piano Lesson, Wilson.

Field Trip Budget:
$780 — $910 per 3-week session (depending on enrollment)

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Whodunit?: Mystery and Suspense in Literature and Film

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This writing class introduces students to an intriguing genre of popular culture: mystery. What elements create a mystery? How do cinematography and sound in film build suspense? What are the literary merits of the mystery genre, and what do mysteries tell us about our culture?

Students read classic mystery writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, and Agatha Christie. They also study clips from a variety of films, including early horror classics and film noir from the Forties and Fifties. By examining literary techniques such as characterization and plot, as well as film techniques such as camera angles and lighting, students analyze the ways writers and directors manipulate these key elements to build suspense and heighten tension on the page and the screen.

Students apply their knowledge of mysteries in formal critical essays and in their own brief stories and scenes. As in all CAA writing courses, students read and comment on each other’s drafts in workshop sessions.

Sample texts: Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Poe; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle; And Then There Were None, Christie; Red Harvest, Hammett.

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Crafting the Essay

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Crafting the Essay begins with the premise that students are members of a writers’ community. Drawing on their own experiences, students write literary essays and personal memoirs as they explore the nature and function of nonfiction prose. Beginning with invention and moving through the drafting and revising stages, students complete four to six polished essays.

Students examine their assumptions about language and truth and explore the creative elements of nonfiction writing. Activities help students practice the elements of lively, powerful prose: vivid, precise diction and specific details; figurative language, including metaphor; and variety in sentence structure. Students also experiment with different techniques for organizing essays and for beginning and ending their work effectively. In addition, instructors encourage students to discover a personal writing voice and consider how that voice relates to audience and purpose. Throughout the course, students read and discuss—often as models for their own writing—the prose of writers such as E. B. White, Maxine Hong Kingston, Joan Didion, and James Baldwin.

Sample texts: The Art of the Personal Essay, Lopate; Elements of Style, Strunk and White; The Woman Warrior, Kingston.

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Introduction to Creative Writing

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E. L. Doctorow says, “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” In this class, students draw inspiration from published works, journals, and rough drafts of authors such as Flannery O’Connor, John Updike, Rita Dove, and Li-Young Lee. Examining a range of content, techniques, styles, and structures, students use discussions and workshop techniques to discover what it means to read like a writer. For instance, they may debate the distinction between the realistic and the fantastic in García Márquez’s short story “I Sell My Dreams” or the value of concrete imagery in Bishop’s poem “The Fish.”

Beginning with a spark of an idea and moving through the drafting and revising stages, students write three short stories. They also craft a number of poems in various forms, such as the villanelle, a sestina, and iambic free verse. Throughout the writing process, classmates and the instructor provide frequent feedback on each student’s drafts, often in a workshop format.

Class presentations, frequent close reading activities, and writing exercises help students identify and practice the elements of lively, powerful creative writing: vivid, precise diction and specific details; deft control of tone; figurative language, including metaphor; careful use of irony and point of view; and variety in structure.

Note: This course focuses on realistic, literary fiction and poetry. The genres of science fiction, fantasy, romance, and mystery are not part of this course.

Sample texts: Materials compiled by the instructor; supplemental texts such as Best American Short Stories of the Century, ed. Updike and Behind the Short Story: From First to Final Draft, Van Cleave and Pierce.

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Writing the Expository Essay

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What makes powerful writing? How can we best say what we mean? How can we show someone else the world through our eyes? In this course, students explore the many purposes of writing and discover how to bring their own unique voices and perspectives to the page.

Throughout the course, students read and discuss—often as models for their own writing—the work of authors such as Annie Dillard, George Orwell, Alice Walker, and E. B. White. Activities help students practice the elements of lively, powerful prose: vivid, precise diction and specific details; figurative language, including metaphor; and variety in sentence structure. As students focus on drafting strategies and revision, they experiment with different techniques for organizing essays and for beginning and ending their pieces effectively. In addition, students frequently work in groups to offer feedback to one another; the instructor guides this process, and students sharpen not only their own writing skills but also their abilities to be careful readers and constructive critics.

Students prepare four to six polished essays, including narrative, persuasive, and critical pieces. Throughout the course, they acquire and refine skills that will prove useful in more advanced writing courses and throughout their academic careers.

Sample texts: The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Non-fiction, Root and Steinberg; Elements of Style, Strunk and White.

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Writing by the Bay

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What influence does a place have on who we are, or on what we write? The towering redwood forests and rugged coastline of Northern California are the setting for a complex tradition of nature writing as well as a distinct social and literary history. In this course, students explore the Monterey Bay area and its literature, using the physical setting and readings to inspire their own personal narratives and critical essays.

Looking to writers such as N. Scott Momaday, Mary Austin, and Henry David Thoreau, the course begins by addressing the challenges of capturing a place on the page; students tackle ideas of the sense of place, the politics of space, and the ways authors create space in literature. The class then moves to texts by authors such as John Steinbeck, Ishmael Reed, and Shawn Wong, whose works reflect the social issues of a growing population. Through these readings, students consider how a single region can be captured in diverse literary styles and how local sites visited during field trips, such as Cannery Row or  San Juan Bautista Mission, can have contrasting or even conflicting meanings to different writers.

Personal and critical essay writing assignments help students develop creative writing skills such as “show, don’t tell” as well as the organization, sentence variety, and rhetorical precision that constitute strong nonfiction prose. As in all CAA writing courses, students read and comment on each other’s drafts in workshop sessions.

Sample text: Materials compiled by the instructor.

Field Trip Budget:
$780 — $975 per 3-week session (depending on enrollment)

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The Graphic Novel

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One of the most innovative literary forms of recent years, the graphic novel is a work that uses a combination of words and sequential art to convey a narrative. From the Filipina-American narrator in Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons to Bosnian survivors in Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde to an AIDS educator in Judd Winick’s Pedro and Me, the graphic novel has become a significant medium for tackling a wide range of historical, social, and political issues. In this writing-intensive course, students discover how graphic novels use words and images to expand traditional narrative structures and conventions.

By examining literary techniques such as tone, flashback, and characterization, as well as visual elements such as framing, shading, and perspective, students analyze how artists and writers marry visual art and literature. Using a text such as Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics to guide them, students learn the particulars of the genre before proceeding to more advanced critical analysis. For example, students might examine Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ politicized deconstruction of superheroes in Watchmen, or they may discuss the use of extended metaphor in Art Spiegelman’s treatment of the Holocaust in Maus.

Throughout the session, students apply their knowledge of the graphic novel in formal critical essays and in creative pieces that explore techniques of sequential art, such as layout and plot breakdowns. As in all CAA writing courses, students read and comment on each other’s drafts in workshop sessions.

Note: This course includes some controversial material; it is recommended for students who have completed 9th grade or higher.

Sample texts: Understanding Comics, McCloud; American Born Chinese, Yang; Dropsie Avenue, Eisner; Watchmen, Moore and Gibbons.

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The Critical Essay: Literature and the Arts

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In this course, students approach literature and the fine arts as texts to be read with a critical eye. Engaging art forms as diverse as painting, poetry, fiction, photography, and classical music, students explore not only how the arts frame different views of the world but also how different views of the world frame the arts. How, for instance, are Picasso’s painting Guernica, Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury, and Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring all expressions of and reactions to disillusionment and rapid change in the wake of political and social unrest? Students also examine how artists are inspired by and interpret each other’s work. For example, how do Margaret Bourke-White’s photographs of Buchenwald inform Susan Sontag’s reflections on representations of atrocity in Regarding the Pain of Others? In addition to engaging the arts directly, students read and debate the ideas of eminent art and literary critics.

As they begin to develop a language for writing about the arts, students complete essays that define, describe, compare, and contrast. In later assignments, students evaluate, analyze, and interpret artistic works. In these essays, students consider critics’ opinions and construct their own interpretations. They produce four to six major writing projects, developing their skills through an intense process of drafting, critiquing in workshops, and revising.

Sample texts: An anthology such as Literature for Composition, Barnet; a novel such as Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf; materials compiled by the instructor.

Field Trip Budget:
$780 — $975 per 3-week session (depending on enrollment)

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The Critical Essay: Popular Culture

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In this course, thinking and writing about popular culture provide students with the opportunity to cast a critical eye on the familiar. Students consider how elements of popular culture—drawn from film, television, popular music, and advertising—both shape and are shaped by our society and value systems. Through lectures, critical readings, and class discussions, students acquire sophisticated tools to analyze the meanings, audiences, and social impact of popular culture.

In addition, students read and evaluate analyses of contemporary culture and its icons by scholars and journalists. Topics of inquiry range from rap to shopping malls and include essays by authors such as Stuart Hall, Naomi Wolf, Molly Bang, Scott McCloud, and bell hooks. Writing assignments include a rhetorical analysis of an advertisement, an analysis of a film, and an essay in which students consider a person, place, or thing as a cultural artifact. Students produce four to six major writing projects, developing their skills through an intense process of drafting, critiquing in workshops, and revising.

Sample text: Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Solomon and Maasik.

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The Critical Essay: Science Fiction

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The Martian tripods that strode forth to divide and conquer in H.G. Wells’s 1898 The War of the Worlds were not only monsters in a “scientific romance” but also a means of illustrating the real-life brutality of British imperialism. Science fiction, in fact, has always engaged pressing political and cultural concerns. Genre pioneers from Harlan Ellison to Ursula K. Le Guin have examined such issues as genetic engineering, class oppression, gender politics, and environmental sustainability.

Beginning with early texts like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and concluding with current classics such as Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, students in this writing course explore major works of science fiction in their historical and cultural contexts. Through lectures, critical reading, and discussion, they consider how authors not only react to scientific or technological advancements, but also challenge our assumptions about society and ourselves. How, for instance, is Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles a critique of Cold War America amidst the uncertainties of the Atomic Age? What does Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower illustrate about contemporary racial tensions and urban decay?

Students supplement their literary study with analyses of selected films and television shows, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Minority Report, and Battlestar Galactica. They produce four to six major essays, developing their skills through an intense process of drafting, critiquing in workshops, and revising.

Sample texts: The Stars My Destination, Bester; The Lathe of Heaven, Le Guin; Women of Wonder: The Classic Years, Sargent; The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, Silverberg.

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The Critical Essay: Film

New course for 2008!

From the bustling Manhattan of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) to the mythologized American west of John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), films have captured our imagination and our culture. More than just popular entertainment, films reflect the society that produces them. What, for example, does a gangster film like Howard Hawks’ Scarface (1932), a domestic melodrama like Dorothy Arzner’s Craig’s Wife (1936), or an adventure classic like Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong (1933) reveal about how we viewed our institutions, our country, and ourselves during the Great Depression?

Through lectures, critical readings, and discussions, students in this writing course acquire the sophisticated skills necessary for college-level critical writing. Students analyze the form and content of classic Hollywood cinema (1910-1960), exploring how directors employ specific strategies to achieve desired results and how films create meaning, target audiences, and affect society at large. In addition to film clips from various cultures and eras, students watch four complete films, including one work by an acknowledged pioneer of world cinema, such as Akira Kurosawa, Agnès Varda, Satyajit Ray, or François Truffaut.

Students write four critical essays in addition to a number of shorter projects such as scene analyses and reviews. Each essay is developed through a process of drafting, critiquing in workshops, and revising. Students learn to research specific details to support thesis statements, organize their thoughts coherently, and forge original voices with which to express their views.

Sample texts: Movies and Meaning: An Introduction to Film, Prince; A Short Guide to Writing about Film, Corrigan.

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Literature and the Arts: Surrealism

New course for 2008!

Salvador Dali said, "Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision." In this writing course, students explore the surrealist movement and its influence on some of Spain's greatest writers, artists, and filmmakers. From Miro's signature flattened organic forms in Harlequin's Carnival to Alberti's spiritual lyricism in Sobre los ángeles  to the unsettling dreamscapes of Bunuel and Dali’s Un Chien Andalou, students examine key works of literature, art, and film that are fundamental to the surrealist genre.

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Travel Narratives: Writers Abroad

New course for 2008!

This course explores the idea of “nation” as it is represented in the writings of foreign journalists and authors. Students read a variety of travel narratives in poetry and prose by authors whose writings reflect their experiences traveling and living in Spain as well as other European countries. Authors might include Edith Wharton, Pablo Neruda, Gamel Woolsey, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway. Students will produce critical and creative essays.

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The Crafting of Fiction

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This advanced course provides an intensive introduction to contemporary literary fiction, particularly the short story. In addition to writing short stories, students read and discuss works primarily by modern and contemporary fiction writers, such as Flannery O’Connor, Tim O’Brien, and Jamaica Kincaid. Students learn to hear the written word with a writer’s ear and examine the principles and practices of fiction writing, such as plot, theme, and character development. The course strongly emphasizes comprehensive revision based on workshop comments and conferences with the instructor. Students finish the course with a working knowledge of the principle tenets of writing fiction and a portfolio of their own polished stories.

Note: This course focuses on realistic, literary fiction. The genres of science fiction, fantasy, romance, and mystery are not part of this course.

Sample texts: The Story and Its Writer, Charters; materials compiled by the instructor.

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Images of China: Literature and the Arts

New course for 2008!

In this intensive writing course, students develop strong critical thinking skills and become versed in the habits of rigorous, lucid writing important to all academic disciplines. As they begin to develop a college-level vocabulary for writing about the arts, students examine cornerstone works of Chinese fiction, poetry, prose, painting, and film, considering each work against the specific historical, cultural, and political contexts in which they were produced.

Sample text: New course.

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Politics and Film: Latin America

New course for 2008!

As classics like Emilio Fernández’s Portrait of María (Mexico, 1944) and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Memoires of Underdevelopment (Cuba, 1968) illustrate, film has always been a key medium for exploring and confronting urgent political and social issues in Latin America. Focusing on critical concerns such as poverty and violence, political oppression, and social constructions of race, class, and gender, students in this course examine films from different cultures and traditions within Latin America, including the work of key directors such as Luis Puenzo (Argentina), Guillermo del Toro (Mexico), and Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund (Brazil). Through intense discussion and analytical writing, students grapple with some of the most prescient issues facing Latin America today and gain the foundational skills necessary to successfully engage the ever-increasing complex global society in which we all live.

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Politics and Film

As early masterworks like Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (Russia, 1925) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (Germany, 1927) illustrate, film has always been a key medium for exploring and confronting urgent political and social concerns around the world. By dramatizing important, controversial events and situations, directors place viewers into narrative contexts that allow them to experience people and circumstances that might otherwise remain somewhat remote.

This course examines films from different cultures and traditions that deal with some of the most pressing international political issues of our time. From David O. Russell's deconstruction of American military intervention in the Persian Gulf War in Three Kings (United States, 1999) to Fernando Meirelles' poignant portrait of abject poverty and the devastation of AIDS in northern Kenya in The Constant Gardener (United Kingdom, 2005), students analyze crucial works of world cinema within the complex historical and political contexts which give rise to such films. Beginning with a classic of political filmmaking such as Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (Algeria, 1967), students learn the language of contemporary film criticism and focus on critical issues such as poverty and violence, the just use of force, imperialism, and oppression based upon race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Students also consider how directors approach political issues from different perspectives and narrative techniques.

Students study four to six complete films in depth, and write and revise four formal critical essays. Through intense discussion and analytical writing, students grapple with some of the most prescient issues that our world faces today and gain the foundational skills necessary to successfully engage the ever-increasing complex global society in which we all live.

Sample texts: My Battle of Algiers: A Memoir, Morgan; We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, Gourevitch; A Short Guide to Writing About Film, Corrigan; materials compiled by the instructor.

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