COMM 481/581 :: Fall 2007
Professor: Dr. Jeffrey Jones
Office: BAL 3012
Office Phone: 683-6267
E-mail:
Office Hours: Monday 10-12, Tuesday 3-4:30, and by appointment
Class:
Mondays, 7:10-9:50 p.m., Constant 1024
Web site:
www.odu.edu/al/jpjones
This class will explore the tradition of documentary expression and representation in cinema, with detours into radio, television, and comics. The “tradition,” of course, is the historical trajectory of documentary expression over the last century. Our emphasis is primarily American and European documentary films, although we also examine the documentary form in radio, television, and other media forms (including entertaining the question: Can a comic book document?). We will assume a historical position, studying the progression and development of the form concurrent with the historical times in which it appeared. The usage of documentary for political purposes—as political propaganda and persuasion, social reform, and opposition to oppression—will also be examined.
1. Mid-Term Take Home Exam (25%)
The mid-term is a take home essay exam that will
be distributed Monday, October 1, and is due Wednesday, October 10 by 7 p.m.
2. Final Exam (25%)
Essay exam. Please bring a blue book. You will be given a choice of questions from
which to choose. The final is not
comprehensive, but instead, covers only the second half of the semester. You
will have 90-minutes to take the exam. The Final Exam is scheduled for Monday, December 10 at 7 p.m.
You are to read Maus I and Maus II
(combined as Maus: A Survivor’s Tale), and write a 6-page
critique on Maus as a documentary work. Some
questions that you might entertain (provided here simply to get the juices
flowing): Can a comic book document? In
what ways is it similar to and different from other oral and/or visual histories? Does the format detract from the seriousness
of the subject? In what ways do the
books prove strong or weak emotionally, and why? How is this a postmodern documentary? What relationship does the author construct
between the reader and historical truth?
In short, critically examine the work and evaluate it based on the
semester’s reading, discussions, and viewings to date. You might also include comparative materials
from the semester. Due Monday, November 26.
4. Class
Attendance, Participation and Discussion (20%)
A. Come to class—missing a class that meets only
once a week is costly.
B. Demonstrate your preparation and forethought by
engaging in discussion with your peers and professor.
C. Blackboard Discussion Board—250-word critical response
to the reading and/or film prior to
coming to class each week (due by 5:00 p.m.).
See Nichols, Chapter 8 for sample.
You are allowed to drop/miss one week, therefore you are expected to
have 13 discussion postings. Again, prior to class, not after.
5.
Documentary History Quizzes (10%)
You will be tested
periodically on the Barnouw reading at the beginning of class in brief
pop-quizzes (to keep everyone honest).
Requirements for COMM 581 (Graduate Students)
1.
Mid-Term and
Final Exam (40%) (see description
above)
2.
Class Teaching
Exercise (15%): Students will be
responsible for teaching the Stott book to the class. As a group, you will conceive and execute a
lecture, video clips, and/or in-class work assignments related to the book. Class Teaching Date: Monday, September 24.
3.
Critical
Analysis of Stott book (15%): Write an 8-9-page paper in which you both critically interrogate
Stott’s book, Documentary Expression and
Thirties America, as well as take it one step further. That is, part of your paper should be an
independent exploration of some aspect of documentary practice examined in the
book—theatre, social science, photographs, etc.
Your mission is to comment on his analysis, then test it further in one
area of your choosing by doing a little research and analysis of your own. Due Date: Monday, October 1.
4.
Final Paper on
Contemporary Documentary Practice (30%): You are to pick three
contemporary documentary films (appearing in the last 15 years) and write a
12-13-page paper on them. Obviously, the
films should “go together” in some thematic, stylistic, authorial, or
industrial way. They could be three
films by the same director (Nick Broomfield, Errol Morris, Michael Moore, Rory
Kennedy, etc.), three films that are all postmodern or reflexive in style,
three films dealing with homosexuality, three verite films, three HBO
productions (though again, you would want additional related features), and so
on. For a list of documentary films that
have been nominated for Academy Awards, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Documentary_Feature#1990s. Please note that many great documentary films
are never nominated for Academy Awards, including those on HBO and those by
Errol Morris (to mention two). Due Date:
Monday, December 3.
Class Policies
Grades:
The following grade scale
applies to all written work: A = 95; A-
= 92; A-/B+ = 90; B+ = 88; B = 85; B- = 82; B-/C+ = 80; etc… If you would like to discuss how to improve
your grades, please come see me during office hours (I don’t discuss
graded work in the hallway or after class).
There is a 24-hour rule on
the return of graded work. That is,
24-hours must pass before you are allowed to communicate with the professor
about your grade. That means no verbal discussions or flaming e-mails. After 24-hours, I will be happy to talk to you
about your grade.
Graduate
Student Information:
The
graduate grading scale will be used for students enrolled in the 500-level
version of this course. The grades used
shall either be A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, or F. There is no D grade given at the graduate
level. Additional assignments required
for graduate students are described above.
Higher quality work will be expected from graduate students than their
undergraduate classmates.
Attendance:
Roll is taken and used in
the calculation of your participation grade.
Excused absences include only the following:
·
Illness that
requires medical treatment (must provided written documentation of doctor or
health clinic visit)
·
Death in
immediate family (must provide obituary)
·
Official
college sponsored activity (must provide note from college personnel)
Paper Submission and Late Papers:
Papers are due at the beginning of class.
Papers submitted after that time will be deducted one letter grade
per calendar day (note: calendar day, not class day). Late papers should be can
either be given to me directly or placed in my mailbox or under my office
door. If you do not give the paper to me
directly, please have the department secretary put a time/date stamp on the paper and initial it. Papers
are generally not accepted via e-mail (unless
specified). You are responsible for
printing your work yourself.
E-mail account activation
As a participant in this
class, you are required to have an active ODU e-mail account. This is important for class communication, as
well as required for you to access Blackboard and to fill out the teaching
evaluations at the end of the semester.
Student Evaluations of Teaching
As a participant in this class, you
are required to fill out a student evaluation of teaching performance on-line
at the end of the semester.
Blackboard
A substantial amount of reading is
posted in .pdf files (readable with Adobe Acrobat) in Blackboard. If your computer does not have Adobe (most
do), it can be downloaded for free at http://www.adobe.com.
Student Progress
and Withdrawing from the Class
The
last day to drop this class is Tuesday, October 23. Grades for your mid-term will be returned
prior to that date, so please make an informed decision about continuance by
that date.
Students with
Disabilities
Reasonable accommodations
are provided for students with disabilities.
Students should present me with the appropriate documentation from the
Office of Disability Services and contact me as soon as possible to discuss the
appropriate accommodations.
The Office of Student
Judicial Affairs has published a guide on College Classroom Conduct. In short, you should refrain from: arriving late, conversing during a lecture, answering
a cell phone (or allowing it to ring by not turning it off), packing to leave
before class is finished, eating loud or smelly food in class, sleeping or
studying unrelated materials in class, surfing the net or instant messaging, or
text-messaging on your phone.
Remember to include or
address the following items. Failure to
address these will result in grade deductions.
It is highly recommended
that you ask someone to edit your
writing prior to submission. Every
article, book, news story, etc., that you see in print is the product of
several sets of eyes. Students should
develop the habit of having someone mark their papers for grammatical errors or
awkward syntax and phrasing. Learn to
give and take criticism productively.
Plagiarism is one example
of violating copyright law. Furthermore,
there are no acceptable instances in written language of using someone else’s
words without quotation marks. If you
plagiarize, you will receive a hearing through the judicial affairs division of
the Office of Student Services. More
likely than not, you will be suspended or expelled in addition to receiving the
grade of F. It is my belief that at
least half of student plagiarism cases occur because students do not know what
it is or how to avoid it. Please see the
handout, and take it upon yourself to learn the proper means of citing someone
else’s words and ideas.
COMM
481
COMM 581
Same
as COMM 481 (numbers 1-5), PLUS:
6. Stott, William. 1986.
Documentary Expression and Thirties
DTD = Documenting the
Documentary
BAR = Barnouw (Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film)
BB=Blackboard
Schedule
In-class
viewing: Lumiere Brothers; Nanook of
the North (69 minutes)
DTD:
Chapter 1
Nichols:
Chapter 8 and Introduction
M Sept. 3: No Class; Labor Day
Outside viewing sometime this week: Man with a Movie Camera (68 minutes);
available at Google Video under Chelovek
s Kino-Apparatom (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3322867758578475961&q=Man+with+a+Movie+Camera&total=7940&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0)
DTD: Chapter 2
Nichols: Chapter 5
M Sept. 10: Early Documentary Form & the
Avant-garde
In-class: Discuss Nanook
and Man with a Movie Camera and
associated readings
BAR: pp. 1-71
BB: Renov, “Poetics of
Documentary”
Nichols:
Chs. 2, 3, 6
M Sept. 24: Social
Activism
BB: Grierson; Stott
Nichols: Ch. 7 (pp. 139-152)
In-class
Viewing: The Plow that Broke the
Plains (25 min.); The River (31
min.)
M Oct. 1: Propaganda
Read: DTD,
Outside Viewing: Triumph
of the Will (110 minutes); available at Google Video as Triumph des Willens (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1624809629731313480&q=triumph+of+the+will&total=830&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0)
Read: BAR:
pp. 100-111, 139-172
Read: DTD:
In-class
Viewing: Why We Fight, Listen to
Take Home, Mid-Term Exam
Due on Wednesday, Oct. 10 by 7 p.m.
(hard copies should be placed in the box on my door, or in my office mailbox,
or slid under my office door).
M Oct. 15: Holocaust and Remembrance
Read: DTD,
In-class Viewing: Night and Fog (32 minutes)
Read:
BAR: “Prosecutor” (pp. 172-182)
In-class Viewing: Shoah
M Oct. 22: Cinema
Vérité
Read: BAR:
“Observer” and “Catalyst” (pp. 229-262)
DTD,
Ch.13
In-class Viewing: Don’t Look Back (96 min.)
***Last Day to Drop Class
is Tuesday, October 23***
M Oct. 29: Vérité Meets ‘70s Social Activism
In-class Viewing: Harlan County, USA (103 min.)
BB Readings: TBA
In-class Viewing: The
Thin Blue Line (101 min.)
Read: DTD,
Ch.23
Read: DTD,
Nichols: Ch. 7 (pp. 153-167)
In-class
Viewing: Tongues Untied (55
min.)
Read: BB: Edgerton, Ken Burns’
In-class Viewing: Jazz
M Nov. 26: Alternative Media: Can a Comic
Book Document?
Read: Maus: A Survivor’s Tale
In-Class: Maus (CD-Rom Version)
**Maus Critique Due**
M Dec. 3: Politics or Propaganda?
Outside
viewing: Fahrenheit 9/11
BB readings:
TBA
M Dec. 10:
Final Exam: 7:00 p.m.