Check out this series on upcoming spring 2020 courses! Remember to check in with your adviser for TAP numbers before your registration date.
This spring, Professor Tanya Rawal is teaching a course on Tuesdays from 6-9 p.m. at the Ware Center about the relationships between film, technology and society as they developed during the twentieth century.
Course Attributes:
- 200-level
- G1 – Arts & Humanities
- W – Writing Component
- Prerequisites: COMM 100 or 100H and ENGL 311 or 312 or 313 or 316 (the Advanced Writing prereq can be waivedby Dr. Craven)
- Must have off campus transportation (free bus from campus!)
Brave New Worlds: Exploring Technology through Film
The ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs. – Marshall McCluhan
From the use of the multiplane camera in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the ‘synergy between science, technology, and society’ in The Stepford Wives (1975) – this class provides students with a platform to understand technology in various social and political terms. With scholarly readings from different disciplines—history, sociology, philosophy, media studies, anthropology, for example—this course will introduce students to the range of questions about technology, society, and politics. This course will also provide students with the knowledge and tools necessary to critically examine the development and integration of film, technology, and society.
Overall, this course seeks to help students better understand the world in which they live, the broader implications of their major course of study, and the complex social, ethical, and moral concerns presented by film and technology. Our goal will be to:
- understand the various perspectives on the co-construction of society and technology;
- recognize that technology represents a complex set of practices, norms, and values that both reflect and shape our beliefs about personhood, class, gender, race, time, space, labor, politics, and so on; and
- examine how factors stemming from broader socio-economy, legal, and political contexts seep into representations and applications of technology in film.