English 481 - Experimental Filmakers

(Offered as ENGL 481, FAMS 481, and ARHA 481.)  This seminar explores different ways of entering into conversations with experimental filmmakers.  Through weekly screenings, in-class visits by contemporary artists, and rigorous examinations of artists’ writings, interviews, and related theoretical texts, we will seek to develop critical and creative vocabularies through which to interact with an array of experimental films and videos.  We will ask:  What sorts of aesthetic, conceptual, and political keywords do contemporary filmmakers draw on to frame their artistic practices?  How do these terms/frameworks challenge established approaches to film analysis?  And how might we elaborate new ways of thinking and speaking about film in an effort to respond to this critical challenge?  Topics examined in this course may include:  expanded cinema, modularity, and performance; artist-run labs and the new materialism; experimental ethnography, locality, and cultural representation; landscape films and the Anthropocene; the politics of intimacy in the diary film; and abstraction, representation, and gender.

Requisite:  At least one foundational course in FAMS or ARHA, or consent of the instructor.  Open to juniors and seniors.  Limited to 12 students.  Fall semester.  Visiting Professor Guilford.