Module SOCI3291: EUROPEAN CINEMA AND SOCIAL IDENTITY

Department: APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES (SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL POLICY)

SOCI3291: EUROPEAN CINEMA AND SOCIAL IDENTITY

Prerequisites

• Satisfactory completion of preliminary honours modules.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To examine and explain the main models of identity operating within sociological analysis.
• To examine and explain the existentialist and pathological models of identity encountered within cinematic fiction.
• To compare and contrast the models of identity found within sociological and cinematic narratives through the application of sociological analysis to key works in contemporary European art cinema.

Content

• Part one examines identity and family, place, politics, gender, ethnicity, class/status, and work.
• Part two focuses on three main themes in the sociological treatment of identity by Weber, Durkheim, Butler, Latour and others: agency, social constructionism, and moral-emotional embodiment.
• Part three explores the cinematic narratives of existentialism and pathological extremity.
• Each part of the course will be illustrated by three films chosen to complement the course material under study at the time, and to provide cameos and case studies for the discussion topics within the seminars.
• The nine films across the course will include works by Kieslowski, Fassbinder, Almodovar, and Bergman.

Learning Outcomes

• That the students will have a good knowledge of the different approaches to identify within sociology.
• That students will have an understanding of the representation of social identities within cinematic fiction.
• That students will be able to analyse social situations and their representations in terms of their identity dynamics.

• LITERACY, COMMUNICATION: That students will have an understanding of the representation of social identities within cinematic fiction.
• COMMUNICATION, LEADERSHIP, TEAMWORK: That students will be able to analyse social situations and their representations in terms of their identity dynamics.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The learning of the basic approaches to identity within sociology will be enabled by lectures and assigned reading.
• The contrast with the treatment of identities in film will be adduced through film screenings and subsequent seminar discussion of the issues raised there about identity.
• The seminars will also feature analysis of the representation of identities using the sociological concepts developed within the module.
• The course will be assessed formatively by the assignment of a film review exercise, in which the focus will be on questions of identity.
• The summative assessment will be an essay which is required to explore some aspect(s) of the relation between film, ideology, culture and social change.
• The unseen exam will test and require illustration of knowledge of the basic theoretical positions established within the core sociological texts, and an understanding of how these positions provide tools for the analysis of film narrative.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Written sociological analysis of identity positions within a film.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University