Vision and Power      (ENGL 4373: Film, Text, and Politics)         Instructor: Fang

The capacity to see has long been associated with knowledge, pleasure, and control.  Similarly, the ability to capture visual attention is commonly associated with immediacy, exhibitionism, and excess.  This course in film studies explores the politics and aesthetics of surveillance and spectacle, in order to investigate the various ways in which vision exercises power.  That is, vision is a power equally capable of destroying originality and oppressing individual liberties, as it is for exercising justice and facilitating artistic innovation and contemplation.

Requirements:  This advanced-level course incorporates substantial reading.  Required films are to be viewed independently by the student, outside of class time.  Graded work includes midterm, final, and pop quizzes.