Essay Instructions: . Papers must be between 4-5 pages (double spaced, Times New Roman, 12 Font). They should make a discussion of one of the issues that we examine in the course (e.g., gendered experience of flânerie; experience of the transient spaces of modernity; modernity and migration; contemporary experience of the province etc.) in relation to a film included in the course syllabus. Papers should incorporate a discussion of the relevant readings in the syllabus as well as students’ own experiences, observarions, and opinions concerning the subject at hand.
Everyday experience of modernity in contemporary cities
Film: Manhattan (Woody Allen, USA, 1979)
Reading:
Marshall Berman, ‘Introduction: New York Calling’ in Marshall Berman and Brian Berger ed. New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg. London: Reaktion Books, 2007.
Armond White, ‘Speaking Truth to Power,’ in Marshall Berman and Brian Berger ed. New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg. London: Reaktion Books, 2007.
Dave Itzkoff, ‘Woody Allen: The Director’s Cut (Interview with Woody Allen,’ New York Times, September 15, 2010. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/woody-allen-the-directors-cut/
Suggested Reading: Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. London: Verso, 1997.
Transient spaces of modernity: Bridges, subways, airports, taxi caps...
Film: Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch, USA, 1991) ; The Terminal (Steven Spielberg, USA, 2004) ; Köprüdekiler (AslA? Özge, Turkey, 2009)
Suggested Reading: Marc Auge, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London: Verso, 2000.
Outside the modern city: Contemporary experience of the province
Film: May Clouds (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, 1999)
Reading: Asuman Suner, New Turkish Cinema: Belonging, Identity and Memory. London: I.B. Tauris Press, 2010.
Early images of the modern city
Film: The Man with the Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1929)
Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, USA, 1936)
Reading: Marko Daniel, “The Man With the Movie Camera: Speed of Vision, Speed of Truth?” http://www.25hrs.org/vertov.htm.
Suggested Reading: Jeremy Hicks, Dziga Vertov: Defining Documentary Film. London: I.B.Tauris, 2007.
The modern subject and the gendered practice of flanerie
Film: My Life to Live (Jean Luc Godard, France, 1962)
Reading: David Sterritt, The Films of Jean-Luc Godard: Seeing the Invisible. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Suggested Reading: Anne Friedberg, Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: University of Stanford Press, 1991.
Richard Neupert, A History of the French New Wave Cinema. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
Migration, globalization, and the modern city
Film: La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995)
Reading:
Myrto Konstantarakos, “Which Mapping of the City? La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995) and the Cinema de Banlieue,” in Phil Powrie, ed. French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Order, disorder and the modern city
Film: Play Time (Jacques Tati, France, 1967); Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, 1997)
Reading:
Janice Tong, “Chungking Express: Time and Its Displacements” in Chris Berry ed. Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes, London: BFI Publishing, 2003.
Laurent Marie, “Jacques Tati’s Play Time as New Babylon” in Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice ed. Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
Suggested Reading: Michel Chion, The Films of Jacques Tati. Toronto: Guernica, 2003.
Experience of modernity in contemporary Istanbul
Film: Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (Fatih AkA?n, Germany, 2005)
Reading:
Engin IA?A?n, “The Soul of a City: Hüzün, Keyif, Longing,” in Deniz Göktürk, Levent Soysal and A?pek Türeli ed. Orienting Istanbul: Cultural Capital of Europe? New York: Routledge, 2010.
Asuman Suner, New Turkish Cinema: Belonging, Identity and Memory. London: I.B. Tauris Press, 2010.