ENGL 231 -- revised, Fall 14

Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 12:51PM

Course Syllabus

ENGL*231*D1 (113645) Film, New Media and Culture

FALL 2014

Dr. Jen Boyle

Phone: (843) 349-6654; Office: EHFA 206

jboyle@coastal.edu (email is the best way to contact me!)

Office and hours:

EHFA 206

T and TH: 10-noon; 1.45 pm-2.45 pm; online office hours available by request and appointment as well

All content for this course is available on course site:

https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/871578

This course is designed to provoke and cultivate students’ imaginative and critical understanding of film and new media in various cultural contexts. The course promotes an active and critical engagement with film and new media texts as a means for analysis and critique of media innovations within the broader framework of humanistic inquiry.

Course Prerequisite: ENGL 101

This course will meet the objectives and outcomes of CORE GOAL 4:Knowledge of Humanistic Concepts

Course Objectives:

Demonstrate the ability to evaluate and interpret varieties of humanistic inquiry and expression in film and new media from the early history of literary studies, art history, critical theory, social sciences, and media studies.
Understand key interpretive, cultural and conceptual frameworks that have guided the study of film and new media as an emerging field of inquiry.
Engage with historical and current definitions of analog and digital media forms and their application within disciplinary frameworks.
Apply knowledge of the formal aspects and aesthetics of new media and film.
Develop an understanding of and facility with the concept of transmedia, the translation of fictional and non-fictional narratives and models across various media formats.
Build on the library research and documentation skills acquired in lower-division courses by concentrating on transmedia research and applications.

Student Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to read comparatively analog and digital texts, identifying, analyzing, and critiquing relevant cultural, aesthetic, and technical/structural themes.

Students will demonstrate competency with the interpretation and critique of image-based, printed, filmic and digital texts.
Students will be able to synthesize text/codes, images, and narratives across a variety of mediated formats (including but not limited to written essays, online forums, human-machine performance, hypertexts, computer models, and web interfaces) and demonstrate competency in synthesizing mediated formats.
Students will demonstrate skills and familiarity with new media research methods, including the challenges posed by new media and digital environments to the principles of intellectual property and authorship.

Assignments and Grading:

Course requirements (you must complete all major assignments in order to be eligible for a passing grade):

1)Weekly detailed discussion postings : 35%

(see the assignment sheet on “Discussion Postings” for a DETAILED outline of the protocols for posting to the discussion board and grading

(1 posting per week; BEGINNING WEEK 4, 1 review of or response to another student's posting)

2) Midterm essay: 30%

3) Final media composition/media critique project: 35%

[PLEASE ALSO SEE ATTENDANCE POLICY BELOW]

Attendance Policy:

Students must contact the instructor at least once during the first five days of class. (The first five days after registering for the course or the first five days after the start date of the course, whichever is later). Contact can include registering for the Canvas course site, visit, e-mail or course logon. *Failure to contact is the equivalent of failure to attend; student will be dropped.

To help ensure an effective learning experience, all students are expected to participate on a regular basis. Participation is defined as “submitting required work as assigned; being an active contributor and responder to fellow students and the instructor in a timely basis, as set forth by online discussion guidelines.” Failure to participate may be counted as an absence.

Please note: (I quote a digital pedagogy mantra, taken here from Lesley Madsen-Brooks): “Technological failure does not constitute an emergency. Hard drives fail, servers go down, file transfers time out, and files get corrupted. You must plan for such contingencies: keep backups of your files, have extra ink cartridges handy, know where the local wifi hotspots are in case your home internet connection goes down. Technological issues are not excuses for late work. Please protect yourself (and your grades) by managing your time and backing up your work.”

**Homework or classwork cannot be submitted late.

Grading scale:

90-100%   A        86-89%    B+
80-85%    B          76-79%    C+
70-75%    C           66-69%    D+
60-65%    D          Below 60%    F

* NOTE that some assignments will receive a numeric grade (the discussion postings, for example) that will be converted to a letter grade at the end of the course.

Required Texts:

*****online texts and videos – see syllabus and Canvas course blog.

ALL TEXTS FOR THE COURSE ARE AVAILABLE AS LINKS THROUGH THE SYLLABUS OR ON THE COURSE SITE, OR AVAILABLE AS PDFS ON THE COURSE SITE.

Films:

Edison’s Kinetogram (available online-- linked through syllabus)

Frankenstein (1931) (available online -- linked through syllabus)

Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) (MUST OBTAIN A VIEWING COPY OF THIS) <available for renting online through Amazon here:http://www.amazon.com/Her-Joaquin-Phoenix/dp/B00KATY250 (Links to an external site.)>

Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie (2012) (MUST OBTAIN A VIEWING COPY OF THIS)

Course Policies:

Plagiarism, and disabilities and accommodations follow the policies set forth by Coastal Carolina University (seehttp://www.coastal.edu/catalog/2009_2010/regulations.pdf)

ADDITIONAL EXPECTATIONS AND CONTRACTS:

o      All viewpoints or positions on the material are welcome (all!), but they must be offered with respect and in the spirit of healthy feedback and argumentation. All positions and viewpoints expressed should relate to the course material and concepts.
o      You must participate in all writing revisions and workshops to receive full credit. As you will come to know, I strongly emphasize revision. Thus, the writing and project exercises for this class are as much about the challenges of this process as they are about what you end up with as a final draft.
o      Since revision is a process I value, I will offer opportunities for us to revise, discuss, and workshop writing assignments together (in virtual individual conferences and through resources available online). The main objective of this class is to take risks and to investigate with expansive energy the events and texts encountered.
o      The final project for this course will allow you to move across disciplines and genres and to experiment with various lines of critical, experimental, and creative expression.

SCHEDULE:

IMPORTANT NOTE !!! **** EACH WEEKLY MODULE FOR THE COURSE IS AVAILABLE AT THE CANVAS ONLINE COURSE SITE (<https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/871578>) . MODULES WILL BE UNAVAILABLE UNTIL THE WEEK BEFORE THEY ARE ASSIGNED. ALL REQUIRED READINGS, LINKS AND ASSIGNMENTS ARE LISTED AND MADE AVAILABLE IN THE MODULE FOR A GIVEN WEEK AT CANVAS. THE SCHEDULE BELOW ALLOWS YOU TO LOOK AHEAD AT READINGS FOR EACH WEEK BUT YOU MUST ACCESS MATERIALS AT CANVAS TO BE ABLE TO COMPLETE ASSIGNMENTS.

WEEK ONE:

INTRODUCTION TO CLASS, SYLLABUS, AND UNITS

MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE READ ALL THE DOCUMENTS AND VIEWED THE VIDEOS ON HOW THE COURSE FUNCTIONS AND POSTING TO THE DISCUSSION BOARD, ALL AVAILABLE AT THE FIRST WEEK MODULE ON CANVAS

GO OVER POSTING TO DISCUSSION BOARD

(QUIZ on the course site and blog and syllabus DUE FRIDAY)

WEEK TWO: WHAT IS NEW MEDIA?

READINGS:

Coover, The End of Books (Links to an external site.)

What is New Media (Links to an external site.)?

VIEW:

What is New Media? (Links to an external site.)