[cs] Introduction to Media Studies: Representations of Equal Rights Movements and Gender in American (Biographical) Movies - Einzelansicht

This course introduces students to the study of media with particular emphasis on film studies and gender representations within media. After an overview on various aspects of media history, media theory, and media analysis, we will focus on selected American biographical movies (biopics) and analyze changing gender representations within these films. Biopics present more or less fictionalized versions of the lives of real persons and the movies in our corpus depict individuals who fought for gender equality and equal rights in the United States. The course will provide students with a tool kit to critically analyze different media productions and investigate how media productions are shaped by current discourses in society while they at the same time add to these discourses. Students will be introduced to foundations of film studies, for example film narrative, cinematique techniques, approaches to contextual interpretation, genre analysis as well as a selection of Gender theories to enhance critical discussion of our examples. To contextualize the movies, we will investigate the historical background of Civil Rights and Equal Rights Movements in the US. We will discuss a selection of films like Milk (2008), On the Basis of Sex (2018) and The Glorias (2020) to explore how media productions are shaped by historical and social contexts on the one hand, while they contribute to and influence discourses in society at the same time.

Readings/materials: A selection of relevant essays and excerpts from books will be made available in electronic form. We will discuss access to visual material in the first session.

Course requirements: Completion of reading assignments, a short (oral) presentation, and a short written assignment at the end of the course. Students are required to watch (excerpts) from movies in advance of the sessions in which we discuss them. Regular attendance and active participation in seminar discussions is expected.

This class will take place on campus / in person.

The first session will be held in a hybrid format, i.e. those who are on campus join me in the room, those who are not on campus in the week before Easter join online.

The possibility for online participation throughout the semester depends on how many people will be interested. We will discuss this in the first session.

Die verbindlich geltenden Zulassungsvoraussetzungen entnehmen Sie eigenverantwortlich den Modulhandbüchern und Studienordnungen Ihres jeweiligen Studienganges.

Die zu erbringenden Prüfungsleistungen sind den Regelungen der Modulhandbücher und der Studienordnung Ihres jeweiligen Studienganges eigenverantwortlich zu entnehmen.