Essay Instructions: FINAL EXPANSION ESSAY
LITERATURE AND THE OCCULTUS: (must be 10 pages PLUS works cited page)
The expansion essay is to incorporate a comprehensive examination of the occult tradition as viewed from the texts: Tobienne’s The Position of Magic In Selected Medieval Spanish Texts and Nichols’ Engaging Cinema: An Introduction to Film Studies up to and including our final film screening for the course in Destino. Use some, if not most, of the film theory video lectures.
In this analytical essay pleasedefine and defend the occult within the realm of literature and film addressing, amidst other inquiries: what is it; where can it be found; what “destroys” the occult; what advantages are offered through the medium of occultus; what disadvantages; et cetera.
Please incorperate many different points on how various parts of the film fit together systematically; this CAN include, in part, a comparative and contrasting component ; with detailed and extensive descriptions.(Rosemarys Baby,The Ninth Gate, The Name of the Rose, and Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula) The writers opinion does not usually address the ultimate worth of the film, rather defend your view of the ways portions of the movie work together and in our case how they fit into the scheme of occultus. For instance, to bring into the discussion elements of a system or cataloguing/commodifying of the occult between Isidore of Seville (i.e. Etymologiae) and Alfonso’s Siete Partidas and his earlier Lapidario alongside the libraries of (characters from th films )Andrew and Liana Telfer, Boris Balkan, Baroness Kesler, the Monkish repository where novices and seasoned, but rationally??"driven monks reside, et cetera.
Primarily, the focus is to to qualify the intellectual tradition that is subsumed in, diachronic and synchronic fashion, an occult tradition. ** Try not to focus too much on what is meant by the expansion of the unknown; the inexplicable; the hidden from physical sight as well as from cognitive sensibility.
I will be sending some notes, old papers(cannot be specifically combined to create this essay); lecture videos, and as many copied pages from the two textbooks that are to be used abundantlly for background matter and resource aid.
Key Questions for Analytical Essay:
• Do you have a thesis? Is it stated clearly by the end of the first or second paragraph of your analysis?
• Do you have a series of reasons supporting the thesis? Are these arranged in logical and convincing order (with the strongest reason coming last)?
• Are your supporting reasons backed up? Do your segmentation and your stylistic analysis provide specific evidence and examples for each reason you offer?
• Does your beginning orient your reader to the direction of your argument?
Page 11: 7 of the 12 sources will be: (not in order)
Nichols, Bill. Engaging Cinema. New York/London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.2010. Print.
Tobienne, Francis, JR. The Position of Magic in Selected Medieval Spanish Texts. Newcastle,
NE: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2008. Print.
The Name of the Rose. Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud. Perf. Sean Connery, Christian Slater, Helmut
Qualtinger and Elya Baskin. Twentieth Century Fox, 1986. Film.
Tobienne, Francis, JR. “Texts and Terms Video Lecture”. USF University. St.Petersburg, FL.11 January 2013.
Roman Polanski, Dir.The Ninth Gate. Perf. Johnny Depp and Frank Langella. 1999. Film.
Polanski, Roman, Dir. Rosemary's Baby. Perf. Mia Farrow, and Ruth Gordon. 1968. Film.
Francis Ford Coppola, Dir. Dracula. Perf. Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins. 1992. Film.
There are faxes for this order.