M-F, 10:20 AM-11:35 AM, SY 0009

Instructor: Peter Zhang
E-Mail: xianzhan@indiana.edu
Office: Mottier Hall 263
Phone: 855-0844

In this class we will discuss films that people feel strongly about,
voicing our feelings and opinions about them, rethinking them in
more useful ways to give them a new life, and putting them away as
resources to help us navigate the social and symbolic worlds.

We’ll be viewing some of the most well-known films, in whole or in
clips, and thinking about the sort of life they seem to want us to
live.  Then we’ll also develop some theoretical and critical
vocabulary to help us make use of these films as we invent the sort
of life that we wish to live.

This seminar offers a space to talk through our collective self as
it is projected on the screen, and to talk about the “us” that could
have been.  In the same way certain cinematic moments get etched in
our psyche, those conversational turns and flows that resonate will
stay with us for years to come and will become resources to enrich
who we are. Since there is no single right way to do the talk, one
might as well explore and experiment with new ways to do it.

This class can help with the talk at least in the following way.  We
will get familiar with a set of conceptual lenses to inform or
otherwise add to the conversation. These lenses are meant as
empowering rather than intimidating. By working with these lenses,
we are sharing the intellectual horizons from which contemporary
communication and critical cultural studies scholars view the world.