Syllabus: This Is How It All Went Down: Documentaries

Films:

Let's Get Lost, directed by Bruce Weber

The Untold Story of Louis Emmet Till, directed by Keith Beauchamp

The Business of Being Born, directed by Abby Epstein

Grey Gardens, directed by Albert & David Maysles & Ellen Hovde

Be Here to Love Me, directed by Margaret Brown

The Up Series: 21, 28, and Michael Apted's director's commentary for 35

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. MacNamara, directed by Errol Morris

4 Little Girls and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, directed by Spike Lee

To Be and to Have, directed by Nicolas Philibert

Our Daily Bread, directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter

Harlan County USA, directed by Barbara Kopple

Grizzly Man, directed by Werner Herzog

New York: A Documentary Film, directed by Ric Burns

Sicko and Capitalism: A Love Story, directed by Michael Moore 

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids, directed by Zana Briski & Ross Kauffman

The Civil War, first disc, directed by Ken Burns

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, directed by Alex Gibney

American Blackout, directed by Ian Inaba

Monumental: David Browers' Fight for Wild America, directed by Kelly Duane

In the Realms of the Unreal, directed by Jessica Yu

Field Trip:

IMAX! The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, directed by George Butler

Course Objectives:

Is a documentary truth or is truth truth. What is a documentary supposed to do. What about the living. Who's lens is this anyway. Documentary v. biopic: discuss. Say what you want to about politics, but you can't deny the footage in American Blackout. Do you feel lied to by the media yet. How come most documentaries about women are about porn stars. Sorry this list is so America-centric. How to present a controversial subject or person. Perpetuating myths: telling someone's life from all sides. What does it mean to tell the story from all sides. Getting in there deep: why Let's Get Lost sets the standard. How to get people talking. Can you publish everything they say. If given the chance, what would you make a documentary about. What do you do when you uncover something mid-film, change course. What did every documentary begin with, as. You can do all the extra credit you want. 

Syllabus: Cute as Hell

A study of a compendium of the following:

• Smurfs
• Bjork, "It's Oh So Quiet"
• Film: Babe: Pig in the City
• The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde
• toadstool mushrooms
• miniature: small pies & muffins, pencils, miniatures taken out of their dollhouse context
• animals: puppies, sleeping babies, baby pandas, koalas, otters, bunnies
• Sad Little Breathing Machine by Matthea Harvey
• Bows & bow ties
• tv show: The Littles
• Fashion: round collars, rolled pants, color!, ruffled bloomers, Mary Jane's, baby doll dresses, suspenders
• Hair: pig tails, the bob
• Film: Fantastic Mr. Fox
• pixies & hobbits
• eco-houses, houses built into the ground
• butt cracks & short stubby hands
• little bowls
• plastic buttons
• baby faced men: Matthew Broderick, Elijah Wood
• cute women: women with short hair, manic pixie dream girl
• Joanna Newsom: The Milk-Eyed Mender
• candy

Course Objectives:

Is cuteness asexual happiness. Elisa Gabbert's post on cuteness here. Is calling something cute condescending. Does cuteness come from darkness. Cute: beauty plus pity. Are people who like cuteness to be trusted. Forced cuteness: dressing kittens in doll's clothing, kittens in mugs. Big people folding small people's laundry. Sesame Street: debate. How come being short is cute. Weigh in: the old man thinks Mia Farrow was cute in Rosemary's Baby. How come southerners are always calling things cute. Texture: wood v. plastic, suits v. dresses, linen v. silk. Animals that reach out to you. Do we all them cute because they can't talk. Any sleeping being, sleeping beings sleeping next to animals. Dogs who show guilt. Debate: leprechauns aren't cute b/c they are all-knowing. Is Tin Tin cute. Aw, reactions to cuteness: document. Anti-cute: children singing Christmas carols. Cultural cuteness: Asian girls, black babies. Cute irony: (Film) The Incredible Shrinking Woman. List: the new childishness. Genitalia v. butts: discuss.

Syllabus: Samurai Films

Films:

Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (Kenji Misumi)

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (Kenji Misumi)

Samurai Assassin (Kihachi Okamoto)

Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa)

Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita)

Samurai Trilogy: Miyamoto Musashi (Yoji Yamada)

Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano)

Samurai Reincarnation (Kenji Fukasaku)

Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto)

Twilight Samurai (Yoji Yamada)

Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa)

Field Trips:

Art of the Samurai, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Course Objectives:

The way of the warrior is to live to die. Weird titillating breast-feeding scenes: discuss. Comments on culture. How a samurai sword is made. Committing seppuku. The battle is never won. In-class homemade blood packets blood splatterings: wear clothes you don't care about. Actor as swordsman as actor. Bandits, ronin, samurai: chart qualities of all. Who's running this country. If you cut off their topknots, they will be so dishonored that they'll kill themselves. Oy rape scenes galore: why. How did death become honorable. Wait--where's his sword--oh shit how did he do that. Compare Kurosawa's version to all. Is a duel challenge a form of bragging or a wish to die. How to remain calm. What is the samurai code.

Syllabus: Native American Literature

Texts:

House Made of Dawn by M. Scott Momaday

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Here First: Autobiographical Esssays by Native American Writers edited by Arnold Krupat and Brian Swann

Riding the Earthboy 40 by James Welch

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

American Indian Literatures edited by LaVonne Brown Ruoff

Film:

Our Spirits Don't Speak English: Indian Boarding School

Black Robe directed by Bruce Beresford

Smoke Signals directed by Chris Eyre

Incident at Oglala directed by Michael Apted

The Exiles directed by Kent Mackenzie

Music:

Mariee Sioux, Faces in the Rocks

Field Trips:

Wounded Knee Mass Burial Gravesite, South Dakota

Battle of Little Bighorn Historic Site, Wyoming

Native American Film Festival, Los Angeles

Course Objectives:

Have you heard M. Scott Momaday speak. What do we do with our knowledge. Do you know about L. Frank Baum's comment regarding Native Americans. What is a Reservation, what is life like there. Think about names. Feeling heavy. Story telling, why and how does that become a talent for a people. What about casinos. Sorry this is Lakota specific, suggest otherwise. Do you know about the 1973 military and FBI takeover of the Pine Ridge Reservation. How do we overcome.

Syllabus: Fellini and A Half

Films:

La Dolce Vita

Amacord

La Citta Delle Donne

Le Notti di Cabiria

Roma

I Clowns

La Strada

Giulietta delgi spiriti

Ginger e Fred

8 1/2

Texts:

Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung

Various Fellini scripts written for Roberto Rosselini

Fellini's drawings are key here

Field Trips:

I heart Roma

Cemetery of Rimini, where Frederico, Giulietta, and their son are buried

Course Objectives:

Why not start big. The circus: say something. Say more. Features of a face: Giulietta Masina. Acting with the face (and not the body): Giulietta Masina. Catholic imagery: explain. Find hope. Find peace. What is sexual freedom really. I once met a man who told me some stories. Screenwriter turned director. Is the dream world the dream world. How does one direct actors who don't speak the same language. On the far side of neorealism. What is immoral. I'm starting to hate the term art film: discuss. What can't you do that your religion won't allow. To what does 8 1/2 refer. Acting with the body. Circus Nostalgia. Nostalgia for Italy. Childhood Nostalgia. Was he remembering, wanting to remember, thinking back. Opening scene: by the sea. A man wonders around Italy "looking for the film." Now you are in color.

Syllabus: A Way Into William Faulkner

Texts, in this order:

Sanctuary

The Sound and the Fury

Light in August

As I Lay Dying

If I Forget Thee Jerusalem (The Wild Palms/Old Man)

The Reivers

Absalom, Absalom!

A Fable

Go Down, Moses

Soldier's Pay

Film:

The Big Sleep

To Have and Have Not

Speeches:

1949 Nobel acceptance

Field Trip:

William Faulkner's house--Rowan Oak, Oxford, Mississippi

Course Objectives:

If you read them in this order, you'll get Faulkner. Is Joe Christmas not the best name. Anyone who pronounces Yoknapatawpha on the first day of class gets a really large pencil. No really, what is the South really like, the post Civil War South. (Did you know FDR spoke at the funeral for the last Civil War veteran?) Is it still in shambles. If you see your sister's underwear while you're holding her up to peak in on talking adults and her underwear was soiled, what happens when you fall in love with her. There are three ways to tell a story and you've never used one of 'em. What is a sentence. Be mindful of this dialogue, honey. I bet you didn't know about all those outlines hanging on his office wall; someone may have wanted us to discuss stream of consciousness, but that's bullshit. We could look at the original covers all day. You know what a swamp rabbit is. Fine, we'll read Mosquitoes. Novel as form: novel in parts, parts mixed up, holy cow nonlinear story telling, novels that switch with other sections of other novels within the same novel. You've never been to a horse race, have you.

Syllabus: Poets' Jobs

Poets & Texts:

 

Wallace Stevens, Vice President of Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company, from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

Julia Cohen, Education Editor--Palgrave MacMillan, Who Could Forget the First Sensational Evening of the Night

Frank O'Hara, MOMA curator, from The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara

Ron Silliman, market analyst--computer industry, Alphabets

Sommer Browning, librarian & comic book maker & Flying Guillotine Press, The House in Narwhal

Frank Stanford, land surveyor, You

Keith Newton, Harp & Altar & Copy Editor--Wine Spectator, Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City

Elisa Gabbert, copywriter for WordStream, Thanks for Sending the Engine

Edward Thomas, journalist and soldier, from The Poems of Edward Thomas

William Carlos Williams, pediatrician, packet

Monica Youn, entertainment lawyer, Ignatz

Sampson Starkweather, science textbook editor, City of Moths

Justin Marks, copywriter--Weight Watchers & Kitchen Press editor, A Million in Prizes

Andrea Baker, antique dealer, like wind loves a window

Shafer Hall, bar keep, Never Cry Woof

Mathias Svalina, former baker & low voltage electrician, Play

Steve Scafidi, cabinet maker, Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer

Field Trips:

Wallace Stevens' house in Hartford, CT

MOMA

tour of a bakery

Course Objectives:

How do poets earn a living. Since there are more poets than there are teaching jobs, what do we do. The relationship of academia and poetry, poets: discuss. Does a job influence a poet's work. Does it matter. Does it make the poet a more interesting literary figure. Jay Hopler's (I think) analyzation of Wallace Stevens' reports. There are poets among us. What do these careers say about what poets value. What is value. Describe the financing of poetry. Name the poet who used to be a nun. 

Syllabus: Acknowledging the Camera

Films:

The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut)

Funny Games, 1997 version (Michael Henake)

High Fidelity (Stephen Frears)

Jules and Jim (Francois Truffaut)

Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder)

Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)

Ferris Beuller's Day Off (John Hughes)

The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci)

The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Once More With Feeling" (Joss Whedon)

Twin Peaks, a few scenes featuring Bob (David Lynch)

smatterings of commercials, news programs

Course Objectives:

What does it mean when a fictitious character looks at a real camera. Is it the same thing as looking at you. Who are you and why are you watching these films. Do you feel as though you're part of the conversation, part of the creation, part of the story. Are you implicated and by what. What's wrong with you and what's wrong with the world. Are you a thoughtless voyeur when you don't acknowledge the camera. How many times does one director get to use this technique. Is it funny for an actor to look into the camera. Why would a filmmaker find it necessary to address the action. Where is the beginning and end of fiction, of fantasy. Who controls the story. Is this technique stronger when it ends a film. Why do people in commercials talk like that; don't they know that no one speaks to me in that manner. Like a baby. Like an idiot. Why do newscasters speak with their eyebrows. Does blood splattering on the camera count as acknowledgement. Name a film to use as contrast.    

Syllabus: The Gurlesque

Reading List:

"On the Gurlesque" by Arielle Greenburg (creator of the term)

Maximum Gaga by Lara Glenum

Baby by Carla Harryman

So We Have Been Given Time  Or by Sawako Nakayasu

Recyclopedia: Timmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse & Drudge by Harryette Mullen

With Deer by Aase Berg, translated by Johannes Goransson

unfathoms by kirsten kaschock

Famous Last Words by Catherine Pierce

Frail-Craft by Jessica Fisher

In No One's Land by Paige Ackerson-Keily

Mommy Must Be A Fountain of Feathers by Kim Hyesoon, translated by Don Mee Choi

Film:

I Spit on Your Grave (Mier Zarchi)

Heathers (Michael Lehman)

Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson)

Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (probably the Dracula, puppet, and witch hunt episodes)

Welcome to the Dollhouse (Todd Solondz)

Gremlins (Joe Dante)

Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette)

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park)

Music:

Mariee Sioux

Neko Case

Tori Amos (sorry)

CocoRosie

Stevie Nicks

Goldfrap

Inara George

PJ Harvey

Retsin

Snowblink

Stina Nordenstam

Thao & The Get Down, Stay Down

Bjork

Art:

melanie belinker

Emily L. Eibel

Eva Hesse

Louise Bourgeois

Course Objectives:

Ain't it cute how there's something cute about women. Is there a Gurlesque school of poetry. It is kind of funny. This doesn't subjugate women does it. Can't women be gross without it being a big deal. What is feminine. What is gothic. Wait, but isn't this gross stuff supposed to be happening to women. Varietals of sperm and sperm pockets. Does it have to feature a woman (as in film; what about American Psycho) or be written/created by a woman in order to be Gurlesque. Women are good multi-taskers because they have to worry about being beautiful on top of everything else. Cute domestic. Animal bodies, animal skins. Be cool with sex.      

Syllabus: Food and Food Politics

Reading List:

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

You Can Farm by Joel Salatin

Food Politics by Marion Nestle

"A Mother's Tale" by James Agee

Appetite for Profit by Michele Simon

Paradox of Plenty by Harvey Levenstein

The Real Food Revival by Sherri Brooks Vinton and Ann Clark Espuelas

Films:

Our Daily Bread

Chow Hound: School Lunch and Menus

The Future of Food

Every Third Bite

Field Trip:

Three Shepherds' Farm, Warren, VT

Course Objectives:

Tolstoy: vegetarian: think on it. Outline the engagement (division) between consumers, agriculture, food industry standards, the government. Do you know what a farm looks like. Venn Diagram: Monsanto Employees, Both, FDA. Research various food movements: slow food, raw food, vegan diets, organic, biodynamic. How come the World Health Organization disagrees with USDA diet recommendations. Do you have to be an anarchist in order to solve world hunger. Is there a connection between genetically modified food and the rise of food allergies. Is a five hundred pound animal that can't hold itself up really something you want to eat. Taste test: can you live without sugar. What is being done right--Crop to Cup, etc.      

Syllabus: Home

Texts:

Sex and Real Estate by Marjorie Garber

No-No Boy by John Okada

"No-Man's-Land" by Eula Biss

Songs by: Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Sufjan Stevens, Chris Isaak, Pajo, Johnny Flynn, Joanna Newsom, Lucinda Williams, The Pernice Brothers, PJ Harvey, Sam Amidon, Sibylle Baier

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Poet in New York by Frederico Garcia Lorca  

The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

Artwork by: Amy Bennett, Andrew Wyeth

From The Most Beautiful House in the World by Witold Rybczynski

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

Poems by: Frank Stanford, Brenda Hillman, Hart Crane, Kate Shapira, Walt Whitman, Juliana Sphar, Yannis Ritsos, Stephanie Anderson, Philip Larkin, Lyn Hejinian  

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Supplements:

dwell: At Home in the Modern World

The Money Pit

Field Trips: 

The Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago and Frank Lloyd Wright's house, Chicago

Course Objectives:

Is this materialistic or what. Home v. House. Where are you from, is it an easy question to answer. Urban v. Suburban. Describe your bedroom. Is a place your place if you weren't born there. What does it mean to have a home. Home is where the heart is. Where was your childhood home and do you still visit it. Home is where you hang your hat, but what if you're multicultural, multi-city or town. What if someone stole your home. What's up with McMansions. Features of the new green home.    

Syllabus: An Introduction to Film Noir

Films:

The Big Sleep

T-Men

Double Indemnity

Asphalt Jungle

Touch of Evil

Sunset Boulevard

M 

Out of the Past

Laura

Shadow of a Doubt

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or The Man Who Wasn't There

Texts:

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

Others, TBA

Course Objectives:

Femme fatale: explain. What happens in light that can't happen in dark. Is everyone a liar. What is the path of the caught man. Betrayal: elaborate. Does the noir style transcend time--film v. video. Is it film noir if it's in color or during the day. What about names. He wouldn't be in this mess if she wasn't such a bombshell. Diary of a camera angle. What would you do to uncover the truth about yourself. Who's the bad guy. Why does the lead role always fall for the wrong woman. Can a man represent all the clashes of ideas within the world, all at one time. What about film noir not filmed in Los Angeles. Is this a genre about crime. What about Hitchcock. If it's not low-budget, is it film noir. Who's innocent now. Who's dead.     

Syllabus: The World of Pirates

Reading List:

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson

The Pirates Own Book: Authentic Narratives of the Most Celebrated Sea Robbers edited by the Marine Research Society

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

Pirate Utopias by Peter Lamborn Wilson

Supplements:

Articles concerning current Somali pirates

Honoring:

Talk Like a Pirate Day, September 20th

Film: 

Captain Blood

Field Trips:

Pirate Soul Museum, Key West, Florida

Wreck of the Wydah, Cape Cod, MA

Course Objectives:

What rules do you chose not to follow. Describe the structure of democracy on a pirate ship. What about women. What is the difference between a pirate and a privateer. What is pirate code and did it ever exist. What was daily life like for a pirate. Who became pirates and who didn't. Why are pirates so fascinating. Is it true that who controls the seas rules the world.    

Syllabus: Literature of Dystopia

Reading List:

1984 by George Orwell

A Totality for Kids by Joshua Clover

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Pause Button, among others by Kevin Davies

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Time Out of Joint or A Scanner, Darkly by Philip K. Dick

Watchmen by Alan Moore

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

Farrenheight 451 by Ray Bradbury

Critical Writings by F.T. Marinetti

Garbage by A.R. Ammons

Y the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn & Pia Guerra

Films:

Soylent Green, Gattaca, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Escape from New York, Them, 12 Monkeys, City of Lost Children, Blade Runner, Firefly

Course Objectives:

What is the world becoming. What did we want it to become. What do we do to make the world better. Why is it so obvious what is going wrong. Who do we blame, how to we stop it, why is it so ungraspable. How is the future always the present. How are past views of the future different from present views of the future. What is the future. How far away is the future. How does the future look different from our past, our present. What is the perfect future. What is the cost of perfection. What is the government's role in our future. How do we balance our government's role in our daily lives. Insert technology for government. Insert money for both. What is balance.