War Stories in Photography, Film, and Literature
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Level: Undergraduate, Graduate
Division: The New School for Public Engagement
School: School of Media Studies
Department: Media Studies
Course Number: NMDS 5243
Course Format: Lecture
Location: NYC campus
Permission Required: No
Description:
Conflict and violence have been constants in human history, as have less heralded attempts at peace and conflict resolution. War Stories takes a broad view of human conflict and violence with a focus on 19th and 20th century media representations when photography and film came of age. Literature, the elder sibling of these media, is considered foundational and inextricably tied to visual images. We will establish some history by reading parts of Thucydides' account of The Peloponnesian War. We will look at photography beginning with the U.S. Civil War, reading Susan Sontag and Barbie Zelziger, and viewing clips from Birth of a Nation and other early war films. We will do a close reading of Erich Maria Remarque's fictionalized World War I memoir All Quiet on the Western Front, and a critical viewing of the Academy Award-Winning 1930 film. We will study the role of LIFE magazine in photojournalism from the 1930s on, and view World War II propaganda films by Frank Capra and others. We will triangulate Graham Greene's prescient and classic Vietnam book The Quiet American with the 1958 and 2002 film versions of the story. Assignments will include five 3-page reaction papers and a final individual or group project that tells a "War Story" that we have not heard, using any media/multimedia tools at your disposal.
Restrictions:College
Open to New School Public Engagement students.
Level
Open to Graduate students.
Major
Open to Documentary Media Studies students.
Open to Environmental Studies students.
Open to Global Studies students.
Open to International Affairs students.
Open to Liberal Arts students.
Open to Media Studies students.
Open to Media Management students.
Open to Media Management students.
