Course Descriptor and Assessment Brief We shape our tools. And afterwards, our tools shape us.’ Marshall McLuhan Today, we live in a world full of screens. You’re probably reading this sentence on one. I was looking at one when I wrote it. And all those screens show us all these images, which help form our view, literally, of the world. We live in a world of cameras too: you probably have one on your phone; and you can rarely walk down a city street without being caught on CCTV. Think for a moment about how powerful, or not, this makes you feel. How much control do you have over the moving image, including your own? On this course we will explore the relationship between the moving image and the culture which produces and consumes it. Drawing on a wide range of media theory, we will discuss how we participate willingly or otherwise – in the moving image, and examine the pleasures and woes created by our participation. Central to the course is a discussion of how the moving image shapes our notion of what is real and true, and influences our sense of being in the world. Assessment is in the form of an illustrated essay of approximately 1,800 words in response to the brief below. Essay Assessment Brief With reference to specific examples, and focusing on ideas of power and control, discuss how participation in the moving image has shaped your sense of yourself and of the wider world. In your essay you may choose to focus on a particular medium, such as television. Alternatively you may wish to compare and contrast different media for instance, film and computer games exploring the similarities and differences that characterise participation in these forms. Your argument should be supported by at least two credible secondary texts (not necessarily from the reading list), fully referenced, with a complete bibliography and list of sources consulted. Bibliography:: Books Baudrillard, Jean, Screened Out, tr. by Chris Turner, (London, New York: Verso, 2002) Baudrillard, Jean, Simulacra and Simulation, tr. by Sheila Faria Glaser, (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1994) Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, (London: Penguin Books/BBC, 1972) Culkin, John, A Schoolmans Guide to Marshall McLuhan, (New York: Saturday Review Inc., 1967) McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, (London: Routledge, 2001) Articles Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 520-527 Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in Illuminations, ed. by Hannah Arendt, tr. by Harry Zohn, from the 1935 essay, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 217-251 Websites ABC, The McLuhan Project. A website of Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (12/08/18) Armstrong, Keishin Jennifer, Why The Handmaids Tale is so relevant today. BBC Culture website. URL: (12/08/18) Loughrey, Clarisse, The Handmaids Tale: Women are channelling the classic book to protest the healthcare bill. The Independent Culture website. URL: (12/08/18) Muritshuis, Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, c. 1665. Muritshuis website. URL: pearl-earring-670/. (19/03/2017) Ruban, Paul, Happy 500th birthday, Raphael cherubs. Online version of Canadian news magazine. Film and TV The Medium is the Message (Part 1). Marshall McLuhan, host Robert Moore. ABC, 1977. (ABC TV, 27/06/77) The Medium is the Message (Part 2). Marshall McLuhan, host Robert Moore. ABC, 1977. (ABC TV, 27/06/77). The Medium is the Message (Part 3). Marshall McLuhan, host Robert Moore. ABC, 1977. (ABC TV, 27/06/77) Ways of Seeing (Episode 2). Dir. John Berger and Mike Dibb. BBC2, 1972. (BBC4, 29/09/08)Books Barthes, Roland, (1993, [1957]), Mythologies, London: Vintage. **** Baudrillard, Jean,(1994), Simulacra and Simulation, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press. Benjamin, Walter, (1999), Illuminations, London: Pimlico. **** Berger, John (1972),Ways of Seeing, Harmondsworth: Penguin. **** Bignall, Jonathan, (2000), Postmodern Media Culture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh **** University Press. Bignall, Jonathan, (2005), Big Brother: Reality TV in the 21st Century, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bolter, David J., Grusin, Richard, (2000), Remediation: Understanding New Media, Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT. Caughie, John, (ed.), (2001), Theories of Authorship: A Reader, London: Routledge. Dean, Jodi, (2009), Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics, Durham, NC: Duke University Press . Dean, Jodi, (2010), Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive, Oxford: Polity. Debord, Guy, (1992, [1967]), The Society of the Spectacle, London: Rebel. Devereux, Eoin, (ed.). (2007), Media Studies: Key Issues and Debates, Los Angeles, Calif., London: SAGE. Dyer, Richard, (1997), Stars, London: BFI. Dyer, Richard, (2004), Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, 2nd edition, London: Routledge. Everett, Anna, Caldwell, John T., (eds.), (2003), New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality, London: Routledge. Hill, John, Church Gibson, Pamela, (2000), Film Studies: Critical Approaches, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fischer, Lucy, Landy, Marcia, (2004), Stars: The Film Reader, New York, London: Routledge. Hjorth, Larissa, (2011), Games and Gaming: An Introduction to New Media, [ebook], Oxford: Berg. Hooks, bell, (1994), Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, London: Routledge. Hooks, bell, (1996) Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class at the Movies, New York, London: Routledge. Stphanie Jeanjean, (2011), ‘Disobedient Video in France in the 1970s: Video Production by Women’s Collectives’,Afterall 27 (Summer 2011) [e-journal]. Jenkins, Henry, (2006), Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York: New York University Press. Krauss, Rosalind, (1976), ‘Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissm’, in OCTOBER 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 50-64, [e-journal]. Lister, Martin, (ed.), (2008), New Media: A Critical Introduction, 2nd edition, London: Routledge. McLuhan, Marshall, (1971, [1962]), The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man, London: R&K Paul. McLuhan, Marshall, (2001, [1964]), Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, London: Routledge. Marris, Paul, Thornham, Sue, (1999), Media Studies: A Reader, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mulvey, Laura, (1989), Visual and Other Pleasures, London: Macmillan. Mulvey, Laura, (2006), Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image, [ebook], London: Reaktion. Ranciere, Jacques, (2009), The Emancipated Spectator, London: Verso. Rayner, Philip, (2001), Kruger, Stephen (eds.), (2001), Media Studies: The Essential Introduction, London: Routledge. Rockhill, Gabriel, Watts, Philip (eds), (2009), Jacques Ranciere: History, Politics, Aesthetics, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rosler, Martha, (2004), ‘Video: Shedding the Utopian Moment’, in Decoys and Disruptions: Selected writings, 1975-2001, Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2004, pp. 53-69. Shaviro, Steven, (1997), Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction About Postmodernism, London: Serpent’s Tail. Shaviro, Steven, (2010), Post-Cinematic Affect, Winchester: Zero Books. Sicart, Miguel, (2009, 2014), The Ethics of Computer Games, [e-book]. Smith, Richard G., Clarke, David B., (eds.), (2015), Jean Baudrillard: From Hyperreality to Disappearance: Uncollected Interviews, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Studlar, Gaylyn, (1988), In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternberg, Dietrich and the Masochistic Aesthetic, New York: Columbia University Press. Sutton, Damian, Mackenzie, Ray, Brind, Sue (eds), (2007), The State of the Real: Aesthetics in the Digital Age, London: IB Taurius. Wagner, Anne, ‘Performance and the Rhetoric of Presence’, OCTOBER 91 (Winter 2000), pp. 59-90. [e-journal] Wark, Mackenzie, (2007), Gamer Theory, Cambridge, Mass., London: Harvard University Press. Zizek, Slavoj, (2002), Welcome to the Desert of the Real, London: Verso. Zizek, Slavoj, (1999), The Zizek Reader, Oxford: Blackwell. Films and Videos (available on 24 hour short loan via the issue desk) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) Capricorn One (Peter Hyams, 1977) Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
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