FIL-30008 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2020/21

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2020/21

Neoconservatism, a reaction within American culture and politics against the liberalism of the 1960s and faith in the ability of the state to address the socio-economic causes of crime, seeks to position the criminal as ultimately responsible for their actions. The consequences of this ideological hegemony has been a rejection of rehabilitative schemes and an increasingly punitive justice system, with policies such as three strike laws for offences that are often nonviolent, mass incarceration, the public labelling and shaming of offenders, and the use of the death penalty as a deterrent. This module will explore US filmic and televisual representations of crime in relation to neoconservative ideology. Students will be expected to develop sophisticated responses to the complexities of texts that sometimes both embody and critique the neoconservative framing of crime and criminals. As such, this module will combine nuanced close reading of texts with historical and political contextualization in order to consider the ways in which issues of class, gender, race, and sexuality are addressed in films and television shows from the 1970s to the present.

To engage with American neoconservatism as the dominant paradigm for the framing of crime in the United States from the 1980s to the present, while paying close attention to shifts in trends and resistance.
To develop students' film/television-analytical skills and film/television-theory knowledge to an advanced level.
To enable students to relate filmic and televisual formal features to issues of historical knowledge.

Intended Learning Outcomes

apply advanced skills in close textual reading of film and/or television (mise-en-scene analysis): 1,2
situate films and/or television shows in relation to political and historical context: 1,2
analyse how the representation of crimes and criminals in films and/or television shows address wider debates about how they are conceptualised: 1,2
demonstrate skills in referencing and bibliography: 1,2
analyse formal features of films and/or television shows to an advanced level: 1,2

Study hours

10 x 1-hour seminars (10 hours)
10 x 1-hour lecture (preceding each film screening) (10 hours)
Film and television screenings (19 hours)
Seminar preparation (55 hours)
Short Paper preparation (20 hours)
Essay preparation (36 hours)

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment