MA Seminar: American Audiovisual Culture and Media

Master's seminars
obligatory courses

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The seminar will focus on broadly understood audiovisual texts, including such media as film, narrative television series, videogames, music video, digital works, and broadly understood trans- and intermedia texts. Using them as primary texts, possible MA projects will investigate a variety of their aspects: narrative, material, political, and aesthetic.

The seminar will focus on broadly understood audiovisual texts produced in the United States in the last several decades (although older texts can also be considered). These include (but are not limited to):

* film (particularly post-1945 American cinema) and short film

* narrative television series (but NOT talk shows, reality television etc.)

* video games and other contemporary forms of gaming

* comics and graphic novels

* music video and music narratives

* digital works (cybertexts, online projects and narratives)

* trans- and intermedia texts

Possible MA projects using such texts as primary sources can analyze their narrative (themes, figures, motifs), material (medium-related and adaptations), political (social, economic, gender, and political contexts), and aesthetic (visual and aural) aspects.

Selected secondary sources:

* Alice Bell, Astrid Ensslin & Hans Kristian Rustad Analyzing Digital Fiction

* Andrew Darley Visual Digital Culture

* Katherine Hayles How We Think

* Linda Hutcheon A Theory of Adaptation

* Henry Jenkins Convergence Culture

* Jesper Juul Half-real. Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds

* Stephen Keane Cinetech: Film, Convergence, and New Media

* Brooks Landon The Aesthetics of Ambivalence. Rethinking Science Fiction Film in the Age of Electronic (Re)production

* Lev Manovich The Language of New Media

* John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman & Carol Vernallis The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics

* Robert C. Sickels American Film in the Digital Age

* Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell How To Watch Television

Upon completing this course the student:

1. KNOWLEDGE

* has a knowledge of contemporary audiovisual culture in USA

* distinguishes a range of media and forms of American audiovisual culture, including the latest developments

* is aware of differences between various audiovisual media and analytical methods used in their analyses

2. SKILLS

* is able to use critical tools

* is able to formulate critical arguments about American audiovisual culture

* is able to use theoretical knowledge in analyses of individual manifestations of contemporary audiovisual culture in the USA

* is able to research sources, formulate theses, and demonstrate them on the basis of secondary sources

3. SOCIAL COMPETENCES

* is aware of cultural differences between the U.S. and Europe

* is open to new phenomena and ideas in audiovisual culture in the U.S.

* understands and appreciates the role of audiovisuality in the United States as well as the transformations of the culture under the influence of digital technologies

Students will receive a grade for their performance during the seminar, which encompasses engagement in discussions, in-class presentations, presentation of one's research project, and the required assignments. More advanced students will be graded on the basis of their chapters: submitted, reviewed, and completed.

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