Criticism of Popular Culture

Catalog description

This course is designed to provide an introduction to the nature and functions of film in its narrative, documentary, and experimental forms. We will look at the various components of film expression, developments in screen narrative, and its role as an instrument of social and cultural expression. Additionally, this course examines the cultural medium of film as theological text and as a visual medium of re-presenting formative sociological narratives about race, genders, and class. The class will theologically and sociologically interrogate films about the enforcement and/or inversion of culturally constructed narratives of oppression and liberation for social transformation. A critical method rooted in theological, biblical, and visual fundamentals, expanded by literary, cultural/theological social analysis, will guide this inquiry into film as theological text.