Summer 2008 Courses
For a list of 2008 SUMMER ABROAD courses, please click here.
Topics in US Film History: Horror Films
June 23 - August 1, 2008: Summer Session 1
FMS 124 (4 units)
Description of Course: From its inception as a genre, horror has always been both popular and disreputable, centrally preoccupied with those aspects of self and society we least wish to confront. In this
course we take a historical view of horror's dual pleasures and perils, beginning with the genre's roots in gothic literature and leading up to the recent popularity of J-Horror
adaptations such as The Ring and Dark Water. Organizing our examination of the genre's development is Andrew Tudor's argument that the genre has exhibited a shift from
pre-1960s "secure" horror to post-Psycho "paranoid" horror; utilizing this frame, we will explore the material and ideological forces behind this shift as well as its
implications for our contemporary cultural moment. By viewing and analyzing films like Frankenstein (1931), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Psycho (1960),
Night of the Living Dead (1968), Halloween (1978), The Fly (1986), Candyman (1992), Scream (1996), and Dark Water (2005), we will explore a
number of different issues including the genre's treatment of race, sexuality, and gender; horror as a "body genre;" the emergence of what might be termed an urban environmental
gothic; and the idea that horror both constructs and problematizes some of the basic ordering structures of capitalist modernity.
Lecture: TTH 2:10-4:40
Screenings: MW 2:10-4:40
CRN: 55689
For more information, please contact the instructor, Marisol Cortez (mfcortez@ucdavis.edu)
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Topics in Film Genres: U.S. Science Fiction Film
June 23 - August 1, 2008: Summer Session 1
FMS 125 (4 units)
Description of Course: This course will examine U.S. science fiction film from the 1950s to the present, focusing on key ideological elements and production practices that mark
the sci-fi genre. From The Thing (1951) and Them! (1954) to Star Wars (1977) to Blade Runner (1982) and The Matrix (1999), this course will cover
theoretical and ideological issues including: postmodernism, cyborgs and the posthuman condition, representations of race, gender, and sexuality, utopia/dystopia, and the post-apocalyptic.
In covering these focal theoretical themes as well as sci-fi cinematic codes and conventions, this course will also address issues of science and technology, economics, history, and
culture as it relates to the development of the American cinema since the 1950s.
Lecture: TWR 10:00-11:40am
Screenings: 12:10-1:50pm
CRN: 55690
For more information, please contact the instructor Michelle Yates (myates@ucdavis.edu)
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Cuban Cinema
August 4 - September 12, 2008: Summer Session II
FMS 189 (4 units), Professor Emilio Bejel
Description of Course: In this course we will study the cinema of the Cuban Revolution. We will begin by contextualizing the relationship between politics and arts in Cuba from 1959 to the present
and outlining the special role cinema has played in that debate among Cuban leftists. This class will have two basic orientations: (1) the discussion of the social subtext of some of the Cuban movies and
documentaries of that period; and (2) the analysis of the techniques used in some of those works. Although we will more content-oriented in our analysis, we will also deal with the importance of some of
the outstanding Cuban filmmakers like Gutierrez Alea, Tabio, and many others; the influence of foreign filmmakers like Fellini and especially Brecht, as well as cinematographic movements like the French
New Wave, Italian neo-realism, and the Brazilian Cinema Novo. Moreover, we will study the common practice in Cuban cinema of the mixing of fiction and documentary, as well as the so-called "imperfect
cinema." Not only we will watch and analyze well-known, "classical" Cuban films like Memories of Underdevelopment, Portrait of Teresa, Guantanamera, and Strawberry and Chocolate, but we will also discuss
other less known works like Waiting List, Life is to Whistle, Who the Hell is Juliette, Balseros, The Twelve Chairs, The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin, and others.
Grading system: This will be a project course, which means that a good deal of the student individual grade will rest on a final paper (12+ doubled space pages) about a specific film or films
not watched for the class, but related with the main topic of the course. This paper will be 75% of the grade. The other 25% will be from weekly quizzes about the films and other materials discussed in class.
Lecture: TWR 10:00-11:40
Viewing: TWR 12:10-1:50
CRN: 81049
To view the flyer, please click here.
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