Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Course Syllabus (W16 Online) Coli 331: "Pulp Fiction And Quentin Tarantino", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Objectives and Expected Learning Outcomes:

Rejecting the standpoint of the passively entertained consumer, our shared objectives in this course will be (1) to bring our selected cinematic and written texts into interaction in such ways as to produce high-quality scholarly writing. It is hoped that, by the end of the semester, each student’s active engagement with our course material should have enabled him/her, (2) to deepen and broaden his/her knowledge base concerning the social problematics we will have treated in such ways as to inform and encourage constructive social action.

We will view Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Reservoir …

The Somewhere We Wish Were Nowhere: Dystopian Realities And (Un)Democratic Imaginaries, Benjamin B. Taylor

Senior Independent Study Theses

How do political practices influence mass culture? Conversely, how does mass culture influence political practice? This project addresses these questions by turning to the concepts of utopia and dystopia. Imagined utopic and dystopic visions express both the hopes and anxieties of the societies producing them. Dystopias also highlight the mechanisms of power that function within particular social orders. Through readings of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I demonstrate how utopia and dystopia function and how we can respond to dystopic realities by theorizing solutions that are more conducive to the …

The Lens That Sees Itself: Fruitful Interactions Of Film And Philosophy, Travis Wheeler

Cinesthesia

Much of film theory holds that film is primarily an act of communication, whose message the audience understands. While this allows us great insights into the ideological and subconscious functions of a great many films, it falls short of this success with more enigmatic films. In instances such as these, where films are not easily understood, a different paradigm is necessary. Using philosophical texts as comparative tools in film analysis provides the answer to this "blindspot" in film criticism.

Climbing A Ladder To Heaven. Gnostic Vision Of The World In Jacob's Ladder (1990), Fryderyk Kwiatkowski

Journal of Religion & Film

Contemporary film-makers quite willingly employ motifs typical of various gnostic trends. The author shows that ancient gnosticism is a treasury of motifs and a source of aesthetical and narrative strategies present in contemporary cinema. The article treats Jacob’s Ladder (1990, dir. Adrian Lyne) which is analyzed through Gnostic beliefs. In the author’s opinion, this film can be treated as a model where the gnostic thought has been presented in a coherent and systematic manner.

Course Syllabus (Fa15) Coli 211 Literature & Psychology: "Material Aesthetics", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

An examination of questions concerning aesthetic experience from the standpoint of the structural and functional logics of the capitalist mode of production

Two Interpretations Of Charity Lamb's Personal Diary, Preston Turner

The Case of Charity Lamb (2015)

These two interpretations of the imagined diary of Charity Lamb suggest the variety of ways in which historical texts can be read.

Silence Of The Lambs, Ruby Guyot

The Case of Charity Lamb (2015)

This collection of poetry and short prose seeks to build on the idea that so little is actually known of Charity Lamb — her thoughts and ideas about everything, from her perspective on life to the killing of her husband, Nathaniel. This collection honors these unknown pages of history by providing several different states of mind on behalf of Charity Lamb, including guilt (or lack of it), relief, fear, and loneliness.

Poems From Charity Lamb, Amy Patterson

The Case of Charity Lamb (2015)

These poems were written from the perspective of Charity Lamb.

Lamb Poster, Heather Mcnutt-Kaestner

The Case of Charity Lamb (2015)

This movie poster was created as an accompaniment to the short film Another Sacrificed Lamb.

Charity Lamb's Diary, Amy Patterson

The Case of Charity Lamb (2015)

This imagined diary traces the life of Charity Lamb over a 20-year period (1834-1854).

Another Sacrificed Lamb: Process Of Making A Short Film, Adrian Iu, Justin Grodem, Riley W. Brown, Preston Turner, Heather Mcnutt-Kaestner, Courtney Hicks, Miranda Gill

The Case of Charity Lamb (2015)

This presentation documents the process of making the short film Another Sacrificed Lamb.

Presence-At-Hand, Eric Lyle Schultz

Graduate School of Art Theses

Abstract

The writing that follows is intended to provide a theoretical framework for the motives behind my practice. The primary concerns addressed are the reception, transmission, and physical shape of knowledge. I will discuss a human condition that exists as a byproduct of both the legacy of representation as well as the innate biology of the brain. I will argue that as a society we are governed by the residue of an extreme logic, and that this condition places severe margins on our potential for creative solutions. I will propose that our ability to create meaning is stifled by the …

The Ecology, Biogeochemistry And Phylogeny Of Methane Seep And Non-Seep Benthic Foraminifera From The Pacific Margin, Ashley M. Burkett

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In an effort to understand the relationships between active methane seep and adjacent non-seep (inactive) populations of the deep-sea foraminifera Cibicidoides wuellerstorfi, a common paleo-indicator species, from methane seeps in the Pacific were analyzed and compared to one another for genetic similarities of small subunit rDNA (SSU rDNA) sequences. Pacific Ocean C. wuellerstorfi were also compared to those collected from other localities around the world (based on 18S gene available on Genbank, e.g., Schweizer et al., 2009). Results from this study revealed that C. wuellerstorfi living in seeps near Costa Rica and Hydrate Ridge are genetically similar to one another …

Jewish Games For Learning: Renewing Heritage Traditions In The Digital Age, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Rather than a discontinuity from traditional modes of learning, new explorations of digital and strategic games in Jewish learning are markedly continuous with ancient practices. An explication of the close connections between traditional modes of Jewish learning, interpretive practice, and gaming culture can help to explain how Jews of the Digital Age can adopt and are adapting modern Games for Learning practices for contemporary purposes. The chapter opens by contextualizing a notion of Jewish Games and the field of Games for Learning. Next, the chapter explains the connections between game systems and Jewish traditions. It closes with a case study …

Personal Identity And Angelic Touch In Wim Wenders' Wings Of Desire, Chris Venner

Journal of Religion & Film

Wenders' Wings of Desire offers a rich tapestry for theorists of personal identity and its relationship to the Other. Set in a Berlin where angels walk among humans, it depicts those angels reorienting humans' lives with but a touch. Martin Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze also theorize the Other's touch as central to any change in the self. Bringing Wenders' film into dialogue with their theories offers new insights into the film's central question, “Why am I me and not you?”

The Binding Of Abraham: Inverting The Akedah In Fail-Safe And Wargames, Hunter B. Dukes

Journal of Religion & Film

This article draws upon Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death to trace how two exemplars of atomic bomb cinema reinterpret the Binding of Isaac (Akedah). Released during the twin peaks of Cold War tension, Fail-Safe (1964) and WarGames (1983) invert the Akedah of Genesis 22. In both films, an act of sacrificial patricide accompanies or replaces the sacrifice of an Isaac-like son. When viewed in the context of Cold War cultural politics—events such as Norman Morrison’s Abrahamic self-immolation and Kent State’s rejection of George Segal’s sacrificial memorial— the inverted Akedah emerges as …

Course Syllabus (Sp15) Coli 214 Literature & Society: "Societies Of Discipline And Control", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course description:

Optics is central to the arts of producing human subjects and governing our spatiotemporal deployment of vital forces. Yet, in the transition of societies from industrial to post-industrial modes of production, there seems to have occurred a parallel shift in governmental focus from merely producing and disciplining subjects at the material level to controlling them at the ideological. In this discussion-driven course, we will turn to works of theory and fiction in order to examine the basic tenets of discipline and control and consider the extent to which these social practices diverge and converge in our present era.

Philosophy's Rarified Air: On Peden's Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

I, Stereotype: Detained In The Uncanny Valley, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In "I, Stereotype," Seo-Young Chu applies Mori's theory of the uncanny valley not to robots but to a different species of humanoid artifact: stereotypes of the "yellow peril." Through analyses of stories by Sax Rohmer, World War Two propaganda, and films from the Bond franchise, Chu investigates ways in which the logic of the uncanny valley has interacted with and shaped Orientalist and techno-Orientalist stereotypes (as well as the stereotype-as-a-perceived-type-of-person more generally). In the process, Chu explores what it means to find one's ethnic group detained in the uncanny valley, what it means to use stereotyping as a time-saving technology …

The Essence Of A Gentleman: A Phenomenological Study Of Honor And Masculinity In Wabash College’S Gentleman’S Rule, Jacob Isaacs

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examined how college men at Wabash College understand good behavior and masculinity while living under a subjective honor code: the Gentleman’s Rule. This included how students learned about and talk about the honor code and particular behaviors that students would identify as exemplifying the Gentleman’s Rule in action. To unearth this information, 12 current Wabash students were each individually interviewed for roughly an hour. Contributions from respondents were subjected to a phenomenological analysis to determine the essence of students’ experiences related to the Gentleman’s Rule. The study found that students typically learned about the Gentleman’s Rule as prospective …

Civilization Of The Living Dead: Canonical Monstrosity, The Romero Zombie, And The Political Subject, Nicholas Walter Robbins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the canonical monsters of Western political theory, including Plato's wolf-man, Hobbes's Leviathan and Tocqueville's mechanical mass. It argues that monster theorists - including horror film director George A. Romero, creator of the zombie and its apocalyptic narrative - utilize the horror genre in order to reveal the hidden dysfunctions and unrealized potentials of self and society. The canon features several prison-like heuristics - including Plato's cave, Hobbes's sate of nature, Tocqueville's prison, and Romero's zombie apocalypse - that bring to light the mass enslavement, intellectual dysfunction, appetitive tyranny, and cannibalism of the political subject. Theorists consistently depict …

The Adversity Pop Culture Has Posed, Darel Joseph

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

I am a collage artist working with multiple mediums such as paint, photography, video, audio, and performance. As a New Orleans’ native, I have a unique history that is unflattering, for my history echoes that of America’s historical misdeeds. I make sociopolitical art because I am of a historically oppressed people. I make art that celebrates my diverse culture that is a collage of Native American, African, and New Orleans’ French Creole.

打造香港道德 = The (Re)Making Of The Hong Kong Ethic, Ching Yau

《新自由主義下的新道德》研討會 NEO-MORALISM UNDER NEOLIBERALISM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

過去關於港人價值觀的論述一般認為華人難民社群有「功利家庭主義」的非政治化取向 (Lau)、殖民政治強化「固有的保守和怯懦心理」(曾31)、「港人(主要是年青一代)普遍都表現了十分內向與退卻心理…… 極端的物慾主義、享樂主義或消極意念」(曾35)。雖然貧富懸殊嚴重，但直至本世紀初以前，「多數居民都相信有能力肯苦幹就有機會出頭」；「法律觀念深入民心」，所以「個人和家庭利益放在集體利益的前面」(李41) ；八十年代後是「利益團體政治」及伴隨而來的「公民權利」及「社區意識」興起，「歸屬感政治」轉變至「權益政治」(黃偉邦 184) ° 戰後出身的一代因為並未經歷中國內戰所以較為「理想主義」(張炳良58) ，大多「出身低下家庭」，「故對社會公義問題特別敏感」(張炳良59)，普遍認同「民主自由、公義平等」原則；不是「福利派」，「要求其本階級利益獲得一定的注重」(張炳良61)，「重視自我奮鬥，強調獨立」(張炳良63) ，要求機會平等而不是均等主義 (Lau and Khan 66; 呂1998b : 203) °「競爭性資本主義」環境提供的「雙軌發展」社會流動機能鼓勵沒受過專上教育的透過「搏殺」來晉升中產階級 (呂1998b : 98) ° 即使看到資本主義「有不平等」，但仍然接受「競爭性的制度」; 九七後的焦慮是害怕失去「一個個人自由得到尊重、個人高度的自由活動空間和依法行事的制度」，導致「自身利益受損」，「毋須因政治理由而委屈、妥協」，面對「強權的、家長式的環境」(呂 1998b : 203-206)。

以上大概描述了上世紀八十年代及以後的港人主流價值觀，經常被統稱為「獅子山下精神」的。過去學者一般傾向把香港本土意識的崛起，「獅子山下精神」(《獅子山下 》為1974-1994年間，香港電台製作的一套電視劇) 的形塑 追塑至七十年代 。六十年代末至七十年代是香港經濟結構急劇轉型期 (如1969-1972年間就有三家證券交易所成立：1969年遠東交易所、1971年金銀證券交易所及1972年九龍證卷交易所)，而五十至六十年代中則通常被指為南來人口無法或企圖適應香港、心懷祖國的過渡期。本文借爬梳五十年代的流行電 影文化來闡述當時社會-我認為同樣是「紮根」香港，以香港作為想像共同體 - 深入民心的價值觀跟「獅子山下精神」的不盡相同甚至矛盾，從而企圖重新想像香港文化中的一些被歷史斷裂化了、地下化了的聲音，如何被有系統地排除在「香港本土」的界定以外。 我追溯這過程作為在香港被「競爭性資本主義」全盤洗禮之前，經歷了的一項去（舊）道德，同時也是去政治化工程。而把「香港本土意識」定性於在七十年代才出現這種說法，是把香港人對殖民資本主義的認同作為香港成為想像共同體的條件，這也是香港最新自由主義化的「本土性」。

Present discourse on Hongkongers' value systems considers this community of Chinese refugees as having an apolitical "utilitarian familism" (Lau); that colonial politics reinforced “an existing psychology of conservatism and timidity” (Tsang 31); that "Hongkongers (mainly its younger generations) express generally a very inward-looking and regressive mentality… an extreme materialism, hedonism and negativity.” (Tsang, 35) Despite a severe gap between the rich and poor, until …

The Ecology And Morphology Of Deep-Sea Benthic Foraminifera: The Australian Margin And Epifaunal Pore Characteristics, Jake Willingham

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The distribution and abundance patterns of modern benthic foraminifera are used by paleoceanographers to assess changes in ocean conditions over geologic time. Examination of modern foraminiferal analogs provides the means to determine how these single-celled protists record clues about ambient conditions in their morphology and abundance/distribution patterns. Abundance and vertical distribution patterns of deep-sea benthic foraminifera were examined along the South Australian Margin and Tasman Sea of Australia. This was one of the first studies to examine microhabitat preferences of living (Rose Bengal stained) deep-sea benthic foraminifera within the region. A total of 11 sediment cores were collected via multicorer. …

Plato's Watermelon: Art And Illusion In The Brothers Bloom, David L. Smith

Journal of Religion & Film

Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom is a sophisticated film about storytelling, pitting the idea that stories are an enhancement of life against the suspicion that stories are a deception. Set in a world of con artistry and illusion, it raises issues similar to those introduced in Plato’s allegory of the cave and in the critique of religion as illusion. Specifically, it follows one character’s desire for an “unwritten life”—a life free from artifice—through various logical and interpersonal challenges, and ends with a profound meditation on the coinherence of faith and skepticism.

Closing The Loop: "The Promise And Threat Of The Sacred" In Rian Johnson’S Looper, Brian W. Nail

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines the ways in which Rian Johnson’s recent film Looper (2012) portrays the complex relationship between violence and the sacred in contemporary society through its exploration of the theme of retribution. Utilizing René Girard’s theory of sacrifice and Roberto Esposito’s explication of the immunitary logic of the sacred, this study argues that the film reveals the double nature of the sacred as a source of both life and death within society. Through an examination of crucial elements of Looper’s plot and setting, and in particular its enigmatic climax, I argue that as a religious film, Looper challenges its …

Course Syllabus (Fa13) Coli 211 Literature & Psychology: "Power, The Subject, And Technological Rationality", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Description and Objectives:

In this course, we will examine mechanisms of power and the processes by which these produce categories of subjectivity. Theoretically speaking, we will begin by considering these processes at the level of society and then dwell on their human experience at the level of the psyche. Here, we will aim to discover processes by which the subject reproduces conditions of domination by power at the level of psychic experience. Power-practices assume their condition of possibility by positing, on the one hand, that the category of the subject is a priori existent and, on the other, that …

Horror-Comedy: The Chaotic Spectrum And Cinematic Synthesis, Marisa Manuel

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Running On Fumes The Destabilization Of The World’S Interconnected Systems As A Result Of Unsustainable Human Proliferation On A Finite Planet, Eduardo Fradin

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the global interconnectivity of critical and complex societal systems. Today, if consumption patterns continue to rise to unsustainable levels in concert with a soaring global population, these social and technological systems may begin to buckle, which will threaten the advancement of modern human civilization in the 21st century and beyond. The first globally-stressed system that is addressed in this paper is the global economic system. The second system I discuss is the global energy system and how it directly impacts the global economy. The following chapter looks at unsustainable population growth, freshwater scarcity, and food stresses. In …

Evaluation Of An Avian Radar System, Michael B. Gerringer

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problem of bird strikes in aviation is becoming an increasing threat, both to aircraft and to human safety. Management efforts have reduced wildlife hazards below 500 feet and within the immediate airport environment, but traditional methods of monitoring bird activity are limited to an observer’s field of view. Avian radar systems could potentially be useful in monitoring bird activity at great distances from the airport, at higher altitudes, and at night (Dolbeer 2006), but little work has been done to validate the tracking capabilities of avian radar systems. Thus, the goal of this research is to evaluate the detection …