Narrative Theory: Film and Literature

Catalog description

This course explores the relationships between language and the medium of film through analysis of adaptations between other mediums and the cinema, and by analysis of the influences between the discourses of literature(s) and the cinema. The course has broad applicability not only to students of literature and students of the cinema, but to all students who need to understand ways to compare relationships between disparate communications and artistic media. Students begin by understanding techniques and theories of both cinematic and literary analysis. Then, they explore theories of adaptation between media, including general theories of artistic and cultural influence. Among the media students may encounter in addition to literary fiction and narrative cinema are the graphic novel, creative nonfiction, drama, poetry, journalism, video games, the documentary cinema, and the experimental cinema. Students work through case studies of adaptation in literal terms, such as the transformation of graphic novels into narrative cinema. Students also work through case studies in influence, in which distinct art and media discourses affect one another, as in the relationship between videogames and the cinema. Students study transmedia storytelling, in which core narratives are expressed in different media. Students also study transcultural and transnational storytelling, in which adaptation and influence are conducted across borders. Students study questions of representation, particularly of difference (race, class, sexuality/gender) and cultural specificity. Students learn the historical and institutional settings which have conditioned these intermediations. The economics of literary and media production and the circumstances of reception of distinct media are explored. Students will experience classical and non-classical forms of storytelling, as well as fictional and non-fictional discourses. In this course, students will meet ancillary concerns in adaptation, such as translation, dramaturgy, and genre scholarship. Students express their individual conclusions in summary projects which apply theory to particular instances of adaptation and influence between media. These projects may include creative work, and multimedia texts which enact as well as analyze adaptation. As advanced scholars in the disciplines of literary and cinematic studies, students are expected to synthesize previous learning in these fields in their summary projects.