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Joined: Thu December 13, 2012 6:31 pm Posts: 39894
I'm putting together a politics and film class for the first time. No documentaries--just movies.
It's probably going to look like this
Office Space Fight Club Hunger Games Wag the Dog (I am going to show Bill Moyer's show about the media's complicity in the lead up to the war in iraq afterwards, so there is one documentary) Bob Roberts Bread and Roses
But I'm going to teach this again in the spring, since it ended up being a popular course (in theory, anyway). What should I have included that I missed?
Joined: Thu December 13, 2012 6:31 pm Posts: 39894
nah, it's not that specific. It's basically using movies to introduce ideas, although a side effect is that some of the students will hopefully start to realize that the shit they like may also have a message. The films are all paired with readings that unpack the ideas in the films. So for instance Office Space is paired with Shopcraft as Soulcraft and Fight Club is paired with Stiffed (which is one of the very best books I've ever read). This semester we're going to start talking about whether or not the ways we work and reproduce our lives leave us spiritually unfulfilled, what that does to our sense of self, and move from there into larger arguments about class and exploitation. Part II we'll look at how such an unsatisfying way of living manages to keep reproducing itself and what can be done about it.
Not the only story to tell in this class, obviously, but the one I'm using this semester.
I think there's an adaptation of Animal Farm, but I don't know whether it's any good. Cuckoo's Nest was always a really good one to think about. The Matrix?
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There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
Joined: Thu December 13, 2012 6:31 pm Posts: 39894
harmless wrote:
I think there's an adaptation of Animal Farm, but I don't know whether it's any good. Cuckoo's Nest was always a really good one to think about. The Matrix?
the adaptation isn't bad.
I've used the matrix to teach marx, but then hunger game enables me to make most of the same points in a less abstract way, although it is also less philosophically interesting
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