WEUR-W 406 (#28523) Violence, Critique, and Narrative: The United States, Greece, and the Wars of Yugoslav Succession
M 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
W 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. (screening)
Fulfills College A&H Credit
Fulfills College Cultural Studies A Credit
This upper-level, interdisciplinary course explores the history of violence, particularly interethnic violence, and its representation in two distinct, but interrelated geographical contexts, the United States and the Balkan Peninsula. Readings will address 1) the history of culture and conflict in both contexts and 2) critical approaches to the questions of violence and human progress. This historical and critical background will serve as a foundation for discussing a variety of films including: John Ford’s Fort Apache, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, Emir Kusturica’s Underground and Black Cat, White Cat, Danis Tanovic’s No Man’s Land, Milcho Manchevsky’s Before the Rain and Dust, Pantelis Voulgaris’s All Is Road, Dinos Katsouridis’s What Did You Do in the War, Thanassis?, and Theo Angelopoulos’s The Travelling Players. Discussion topics include:
* the American fascination with the Balkans as an other space and Balkan violence as an other means to social ends
* the relationship of violence to economics and the different strategies that Balkan and American directors employ to represent this relationship
* the role of Hollywood in the Balkan cinematic imagination
* the mythologization of violence in the western and gangster film
* the relationship of violence and critique to social and cultural change
* and, most importantly, the critical implications of the different strategies for representing and aestheticizing violence that are employed in Hollywood and Balkan cinema.
Grades for this course will be based on class participation, two papers, and a number of quizzes. In addition to attending lectures, students will be expected to attend a weekly screening.
For further information, please contact Prof. Franklin L. Hess (flhess@indiana.edu).
