552.311 (18S) Focus on Culture: Apocalypse Now? American Climate Change Cinema

Sommersemester 2018

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First course session
06.03.2018 16:00 - 19:30 N.0.42 On Campus
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Overview

Lecturer
Course title german Focus on Culture: Apocalypse Now? American Climate Change Cinema
Type Seminar (continuous assessment course )
Hours per Week 2.0
ECTS credits 6.0
Registrations 20 (25 max.)
Organisational unit
Language of instruction English
Course begins on 06.03.2018
eLearning Go to Moodle course
Remarks (english)

This is a block seminar. Attendance of the first double-session on March 6 is MANDATORY! 

In order to attend this course, students need to have completed the STEOP and a Topics in American Cultural Studies proseminar.

Time and place

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Course Information

Intended learning outcomes

Students will learn the basic concepts in film studies and acquire a conceptual framework necessary to think, write, and speak about film. They will also develop a deeper understanding of the ecological, economic, and social issues and challanges surrounding climate change and of how these issues and challenges are represented in contemporary American film. They will also establish connections between defining characteristics of contemporary American culture and their relation to the nation's multifacetted responses to climate change.

Teaching methodology including the use of eLearning tools

Short lecture inputs; detailed analysis and in-class discussion of assigned films and texts. 

Course content

Climate change is a defining issue of our time and one that triggers emotional responses that reach from apathy to anxiety and aversion. The United States has become particularly notorious for its widespread denialism and unwillingness to participate in concerted attempts to address the issue. In this seminar, we will watch and discuss a range documentary and fiction films that explore the nation’s and the world’s troubled relationship to a changing climate. Among the documenta­ries we will consider are Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Ice (2012), Robert Kenner’s Merchants of Doubt (2015), and Keegan Kuhn and Kip Andersen’s Cowspiracy (2014). Feature films will include Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild (2008). We will discuss how these films shed a critical light on the “American Way of Life” and on the unsustainable Western lifestyle more generally. We will ask ourselves how each of them works on the visual, rhetorical and narrative level in order to make people care about climate change and whether, as cultural texts, they have the power to do so.

Literature

All texts and films will be provided by the instructor.

Examination information

Im Fall von online durchgeführten Prüfungen sind die Standards zu beachten, die die technischen Geräte der Studierenden erfüllen müssen, um an diesen Prüfungen teilnehmen zu können.

Grading scheme

Grade / Grade grading scheme

Position in the curriculum

  • Teacher training programme English (Secondary School Teacher Accreditation) (SKZ: 344, Version: 04W.7)
    • Stage two
      • Subject: Advanced Culture Studies (Compulsory subject)
        • SE zu Topics in American Culture Studies ( 2.0h SE / 5.0 ECTS)
          • 552.311 Focus on Culture: Apocalypse Now? American Climate Change Cinema (2.0h SE / 5.0 ECTS)
  • Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies (SKZ: 612, Version: 15W.3)
    • Subject: Fachliches Vertiefungsstudium (Compulsory subject)
      • 7.3 (c) Focus on Culture ( 0.0h SE / 6.0 ECTS)
        • 552.311 Focus on Culture: Apocalypse Now? American Climate Change Cinema (2.0h SE / 6.0 ECTS)
          Absolvierung im 4., 5. Semester empfohlen
  • Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies (SKZ: 612, Version: 15W.3)
    • Subject: Freie Kombination (Compulsory elective)
      • 10.1 Freie Kombination ( 0.0h SE / 12.0 ECTS)
        • 552.311 Focus on Culture: Apocalypse Now? American Climate Change Cinema (2.0h SE / 6.0 ECTS)
          Absolvierung im 5., 6. Semester empfohlen
  • Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies (SKZ: 612, Version: 10W.3)
    • Subject: Fachliches Vertiefungsstudium (Compulsory subject)
      • Focus on Culture ( 2.0h SE / 7.0 ECTS)
        • 552.311 Focus on Culture: Apocalypse Now? American Climate Change Cinema (2.0h SE / 7.0 ECTS)
  • Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies (SKZ: 612, Version: 10W.3)
    • Subject: Freie Kombination (Compulsory elective)
      • Freie Kombination ( 0.0h XX / 11.0 ECTS)
        • 552.311 Focus on Culture: Apocalypse Now? American Climate Change Cinema (2.0h SE / 7.0 ECTS)

Equivalent courses for counting the examination attempts

This course is not assigned to a sequence of equivalent courses