Taught by Special Lecturer Justin Remeselnik, Ph.D., the course will examine an array of styles and genres using various critical approaches, including auteur theory, gender studies, psychoanalysis, Marxism and affect theory.
In addition, the historic, social and aesthetic contexts of various cinematic traditions will be considered. While French cinema will be the focus of the class, attention will also be given to the relationship between French film culture and other national industries, including Hollywood.
Dr. Remeselnik, a 2013 Teaching Excellence Award nominee, said the course should appeal to anyone interested in cinema, French history and culture, and the arts in general.
“In fact, our approach will frequently be interdisciplinary, particularly since many of the filmmakers who will be discussed were originally practitioners of other art forms,” Dr. Remeselnik said.
Examples of those art forms include stage magic, favored by Georges Méliès, poetry, which inspired Jean Cocteau, and painting and sculpture, used by Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dalí.
The four-credit course will cover a diverse array of films, from mythic dreamscapes in Jean Cocteau’s "Beauty and the Beast," to erotic Surrealist nightmares in Luis Buñuel’s "Belle de Jour", and from musical melodramas with Jacques Demy’s "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," to macabre murder mysteries with Patrice Leconte’s "Monsieur Hire."
English 260: Masterpieces of World Cinema satisfies the global perspective general education requirement and will be held during the summer II session (July 1 - August 21) For additional information, contact Dr. Remeselnik at (248) 370-2268 or e-mail
remeseln@oakland.edu.
