7AAQS560 Media Aesthetics (PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS A PROVISIONAL OUTLINE) Semester: Convenor: Office: Office Hours: Film

Screenings: Seminar Times: 2 Dr. Michele Pierson 563 Norfolk Building, Surrey Street Tuesdays 1-3, FS1 Tuesdays 3-5, FS1

General Aims There is a broad consensus among critics, philosophers, and film and media studies scholars, that what we might think of as the aesthetics of cinema its formal and stylistic features and particular modes of address have always drawn on, and refracted, other forms of media. Today, emergent forms of digital media and electronic arts are again prompting new writing and reflection on the types of aesthetic experiences offered by a range of media. Much of this work calls for an approach that combines historical modes of research concerned with teasing out the ways in which new forms of media draw upon and adapt the aesthetic strategies and techniques of older media with more philosophical and theoretical forms of analysis. This course will examine a number of aesthetic ideas and concepts from wonder and the sublime to pastiche and the baroque in relation to both mainstream and avant-garde forms of film and media. Since Kant, aesthetic theory has addressed itself both to describing aesthetic objects and to trying to theorise aesthetic experience. Key texts by writers and philosophers such as Edmund Burke, Walter Benjamin, Andr Bazin and Jean-Franois Lyotard will be used as a springboard for thinking about aesthetic experience in all its peripatetic variety. Required Reading All required reading is available in the Media Aesthetics course reader, on sale from Stephanie Green, Rm 446 Norfolk Building, Surrey Street. Film Screenings Films will be screened on video or DVD. Attendance at these screenings is compulsory and students should come to class prepared to discuss the films in relation to the course readings. Seminars will follow immediately afterwards. Student Responsibilities Your first and most important responsibility is to keep up with the assigned readings and to think carefully about them before you come to class each week. In addition to taking notes on the readings, you should prepare a couple of questions for class discussion. At the beginning of the semester, students will nominate a week in which they will be responsible for motivating and leading discussion on that week's topic. Note that regular attendance of courses is a College regulation. Attendance at course sessions whether lectures, seminars, or required screenings is monitored and part of the requirements for passing each course which contributes to your degree. Unavoidable absence must always be explained in advance to the member of staff concerned. Of course, you may at times be unwell or otherwise unable to meet a particular deadline for good reason. You must inform the course convenor at once in all such cases. If you are absent through illness for more than a week you must provide a medical certificate as soon as you return. Failure to attend more than three sessions in any course will result in your being dropped from that course. Assessment Essay (100%)

Topics: You are required to develop an essay topic that addresses the key issues related to one of the weekly course topics. Essay topics must be submitted to me in writing for approval no later than Guidelines for Formulating an Essay Topic You are required to devise an essay topic that 1) critically engages with one of the key terms and concepts that has been examined in this course (e.g. the sublime, transformation, the real, melancholy, nostalgia, cosmopolitanism, assemblage/ compilation, the baroque, firstperson and 2) utilises this concept for an analysis of a film, or small selection of films. It is important that your essay topic indicate which film or collection of films you intend to analyse. Bear in mind that your own close readings and analysis will have more scope for producing fresh insights if you analyse something that has not already been subjected to the kind of close scrutiny and analysis that you intend to apply it. Word Count: 5,000 words Every piece of assessed course work that you are required to submit has a word limit. This limit must be carefully observed; failure to do so will be penalized when the work is marked. The School of Humanities has issued Examiners with the following guidelines: An electronic word count should be noted on the front of all pieces of course work. Word limits apply to everything excluding the bibliography and filmography. There will normally be a 5% tolerance for work that exceeds the word limit: no penalty will be incurred for up to 5% over the limit. Thereafter 2 marks will normally be deducted for every additional 5% over the limit, until 50% is reached. After 50% 3 marks will normally be deducted for each additional 5%. An equivalent penalty does not apply to candidates whose work falls short of the prescribed limits. Such 'short work' will be assessed in accordance with the usual undergraduate marking criteria.

All assessed essays must follow the Film Studies Guide for the Presentation of Written Work. Failure to do so will result in marks being deducted. Please be sure that you are also familiar with the Film Studies Regulations for Submitting Assessed Course Work. You will find these and other useful documents on the Film Studies web site: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/film/ ug/current/. Essays must be submitted in DUPLICATE to Stephanie Green, Rm. 446 Norfolk Building, Surrey Street. Due Date: 12 noon, Monday 25 April, 2011 Assessed course work not submitted by the stated deadline will be awarded a mark of zero. Extensions to deadlines for course work will be granted only for medical or family emergencies or for some outstanding circumstance and may only be given with the approval of the Chair of the MA Programme Board. A note on plagiarism Plagiarism is a serious academic offence and will not be tolerated by the Film Studies Programme. You are reminded that all work submitted as part of the requirements for any examination or assessment of the College or of the University of London must be expressed in your own words and incorporate your own ideas and judgements. Plagiarism is the presentation of another person's thoughts, words, judgements, ideas, etc., as your own. Direct quotations from the published or unpublished work of others, including work published electronically, must always be identified

as such by being placed inside quotation marks (if fewer than four lines long) or receiving a block quotation (if more than four lines long), and a full reference to their source must be provided in the proper form. A series of short quotations from several different sources, if not clearly identified as such, constitutes plagiarism just as much as does a single unacknowledged long quotation from a single source. Equally, if you paraphrase another person's ideas or judgements, you must refer to that person in your text, and include the work referred to in your bibliography. Examples of plagiarism include: Direct copying of paragraphs, sentences, a single sentence or significant parts of a sentence without any acknowledgement; Direct copying of paragraphs, sentences, a single sentence or significant parts of a sentence with an end reference but without quotation marks around the copied text; Paraphrasing, summarising or simply rearranging another person's words, ideas, etc without changing the basic structure and/or meaning of the text; Offering an idea or interpretation that is not one's own without identifying whose idea or interpretation it is; A cut and paste' of statements from multiple sources; Copying or adapting another student's original work into a submitted piece of assessment. An allegation of plagiarism can result in action being taken under the Regulations Governing Examination and Assessment Offences. It is a reasonable working assumption that work for which plagiarism is proved will be awarded a mark of zero. As well, a proven allegation of plagiarism can result in a range of other penalties depending on the seriousness of the case. Even in a minor or technical case, a note may be placed on a student's file for future reference. A serious case can lead to expulsion from the College. You should therefore consult your course convenor if you are in any doubt about what is permissible. Seminar Programme Week 1 Week 2 No teaching Close-up

Screening: Opening Night (John Cassavetes, 1978), 144 min. Reading: Bla Balzs, Visible Man, or the Culture of Film (1924), intro Erica Carter, trans. Rodney Livingstone, Screen 48, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 91-108. Jacques Aumont, The Face in Close-Up, in The Visual Turn: Classical Film Theory and Art History, ed. Angela Dalle Vacche (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 127-150. Carl Plantinga, The Scene of Empathy and the Human Face on Film, in Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion, eds. Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 239-256. Further Reading: Mary Ann Doane, The Close-Up: Scale and Detail in the Cinema, Differences 14, no. 5 (Fall 2003): 89-111. Jean Epstein, Magnification and Other Writings, trans. Stuart Liebman, October 3 (1977): 9-25. ________________________________

Week 3

Sublime

Screening: TBA Reading: Excerpts from Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 53-79 and 117-136. First published 1757. Revised 1759. Scott Bukatman, The Artificial Infinite: On Special Effects and the Sublime, in Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003), 81-110. Jean-Franois Lyotard, The Sublime and the Avant-Garde, in The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 89-107. Further Reading: Immanuel Kant. Analytic of the Sublime. In Critique of Judgment. First published 1790. Jeffrey Pence, Cinema of the Sublime: Theorizing the Ineffable, Poetics Today 25, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 29-66. ________________________________ Week 4 Screening: Transformation Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse (Disney 1929-1935), approx. 45 min. Short films by the Quay Brothers, 45 min. Rubber Johnny (Chris Cunningham, 2005), 6 min.

Reading: Esther Leslie, Mickey Mouse, Utopia and Walter Benjamin, in Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-garde (London and New York: Verso, 2002), 80122. Suzanne Buchan, The Animated Spectator: Watching the Quay Brothers Worlds, in Animated Worlds, ed. Suzanne Buchan (Eastleigh, UK: John Libbey Press, 2006), 15-38. Scott Bukatman, Morphing Taking Shape and the Performance of Self, in MetaMorphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change, ed. Vivian Sobchack (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 225-250. Further Reading: Maureen Furniss, Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics, revised edition (Eastleigh: John Libbey, 2007). Sergie Eisenstein, Chapter II, in Eisenstein on Disney, ed. Jay Leyda and trans. Alan Upchurch (London: Methuen, 1988), 7-40. ________________________________ Week 5 Time

Screening: Decasia (Bill Morrison, 2002), 90 min. Reading: Gilles Deleuze, From Recollection to Dreams: Third Commentary on Bergson, in Cinema 2: the Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 44-67.

Garrett Stewart, Temportation, in Framed Time: Toward a Postfilmic Cinema (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 122-163. Andy Hamilton, Rhythm and Time, in Aesthetics and Music (London and New York: Continuum, 2007), 119-152. Further Reading: Mary Ann Doane, The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2002). James Phillips (ed.), Cinematic Thinking: Philosophical Approaches to the New Cinema (California: Stanford University Press, 2008). ________________________________

Week 6

Reading week

Week 7

Real (in a Time of War)

Screening: The War Tapes (Deborah Scranton, 2006), 97 min. Reading: Andr Bazin, The Ontology of the Photographic Image, in What is Cinema Vol 1, trans. Hugh Gray (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1967), 9-16. Philip Rosen, Document and Documentary: On the Persistence of Historical Concepts, in Theorizing Documentary, ed. Michael Renov (New York and London: Routledge, 1993), 58-89. Jane M. Gaines, The Production of Outrage: The Iraq War and the Radical Documentary Tradition, Framework 48, no. 2 (2007): 36-55. Further Reading: Seth Feldman, Viewer, Viewing, Viewed: A Critique of Subject-Generated Documentary, Journal of the University Film Association 29, no. 1 (1977): 23-36. Philip Rosen, Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory (Minnesota and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). ________________________________ Week 8 Melancholy

Screening: Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, 1999), 94 min. Reading: Jennifer Radden, Introduction: From Melancholic States to Clinical Depression, in The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva, ed. Jennifer Radden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3-51. Sigmund Freud, Mourning and Melancholia, in On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia, trans. Shaun Witeside (London: Penguin, 2005). First published 1917. Emily Brady and Arto Haapala, Melancholy as an Aesthetic Emotion, Contemporary Aesthetics 1 (2003). Further Reading: Paul Grainge, Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in Retro America (Westport, CN: Praeger, 2002). Dylan Trigg, The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason (New York: Peter Lang, 2006). ________________________________

Week 9

Cosmopolitanism

Screening: I Dont Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-Liang, 2006), 115 min. Reading: Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism, in Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 3-24. Charles R. Acland, Cinemagoing as Felt Internationalism, in Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture (London and Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 229246. Sean Cubitt, Cosmopolitan Film, in The Cinema Effect (Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2004), 331-358. Further Reading: Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins (eds.), Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation, eds. (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). ________________________________ Week 10 Screening: Assemblage (as Historiography) Nuit et Brouillard/ Night and Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955), 32 min. 90 min. excerpt from Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, 19572004), 440 min.

Readings: Patrick Sjberg, Compilation Film and Historiography, in The World in Pieces: A Study of Compilation Film (Stockholm, 2001), 133-207. Jeffrey Skoller, Introduction, in Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in AvantGarde Film (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), ix-xii. Further Reading: Emma Wilson, Material Remains: Night and Fog, October 112 (Spring 2005): 89-110. Catherine Russell, Archival Apocalypse: Found Footage as Ethnography, in Experimental Ethnography: The Work of Film in the Age of Video (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), 238-274. ________________________________ Week 11 Screening: Baroque The Order from Cremaster 3 (Matthew Barney, 2003), 30 min. Cowards Bend the Knee (Guy Maddin, 2004), 60 min.

Reading: Omar Calabrese, Taste and Method, in Neo-Baroque: A Sign of the Times, fwd. Umberto Eco (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 47-67. Christine Guci-Glucksmann, An Aesthetics of Otherness, in Baroque Reason: the Aesthetics of Modernity, trans. Patrick Camiller (London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994), 3-26. Alexandra Keller and Frazer Ward, Matthew Barney and the Paradox of the Neo-AvantGarde Blockbuster, Cinema Journal, 45.2 (Winter 2006): 3-16. Further Reading:

Sean Cubitt, Neobaroque Film in The Cinema Effect (Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2004), 217-244. Gilles, Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1992). ________________________________ Week 12 Screening: First-Person (Video) Love Tapes (Wendy Clark 1970-), approx 15 min. TBA

Reading: Rosalind Krauss, Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism, October 1 (Spring 1976): 50-64. Michael Renov, Video Confessions, in The Subject of Documentary (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 191-215. Marsha Orgeron and Devin Orgeron, Familial Pursuits, Editorial Acts: Documentaries after the Age of Home Video, The Velvet Light Trap 60 (2007): 47-62. Further Reading: James M. Moran, From Reel Families to Families We Choose: Video in the Home Mode, in Theres No Place Like Home Video (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 33-63. Keith Beattie, The camera I: Autobiographical Documentary, in Documentary Screens: Non-fiction Film and Television (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). ________________________________ Selected Bibliography Acland, Charles R. Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture. London and Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Bazin, Andre. What is Cinema Vol 1 and Vol. 2. Trans. Hugh Gray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Benjamin, Walter. One Way Street and Other Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter. London: Verso, 1979. Bukatman, Scott. Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003. Burke, Edmund. Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. First published 1757. Revised 1759. Burnett, Ron. How Images Think. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004. Cheah, Pheng and Bruce Robbins (Eds.). Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Cubitt, Sean. The Cinema Effect. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2004. Deleuze, Gilles. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. Trans. Tom Conley. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1992. Downes, Daniel. Interactive Realism: The Poetics of Cyberspace. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2005. Elsaesser, Thomas and Kay Hoffmann (Eds.). Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998. Elsaesser, Thomas (Ed.). Harun Farocki: Working on the Sight-Lines. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004. Everett, Anna and John T. Caldwell (Eds.). New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Hansen, Mark B.N. New Philosophy for New Media. London and Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.

Harries, Dan (Ed.). The New Media Book. London: BFI, 2002. Jerslev, Anne (Ed.). Realism and Reality in Film and Media. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press/ University Copenhagen Press, 2002). Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. First published 1790. King, Geoff and Tanya Krzywinska (Eds.). Screenplay: cinema/videogames/interfaces. London and New York: Wallflower, 2002. Kracauer, Siegfried. The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Trans. Thomas Y. Levin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Lyotard, Jean-Franois. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988. Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2001. Matthews, Pamela R. and David McWhirter (Eds.). Aesthetic Subjects. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Ndalianis, Angela. Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Entertainment. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2004. Rabinovitz, Lauren and Abraham Geil (Eds.) Memory Bytes: History, Technology, and Digital Culture. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004. Rodowick, D.N. Reading the Figural, or, Philosophy after the New Media. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001. Philip Rosen, Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory. Minnesota and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Ryan, Marie-Laure (Ed.). Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999. Shaw, Jeffrey and Peter Weibel (Eds.). Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film. London and Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. Sjberg, Patrick. The World in Pieces: A Study of Compilation Film. Stockholm, 2001. Sobchack, Vivian (Ed.). Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Thorbury, David and Henry Jenkins (Eds.) Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2004. Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Pat Harrigan (Eds.) First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. Wolf, Mark J.P. and Bernard Perron (Eds.) The Video Game Theory Reader. New York and London: Routledge, 2003.