Entertaining Social Change
AMST 315
Spring 2024
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
ENGL 309, FGSS 315 |
"Our problem," Tom Frank writes, "is that we have a fixed idea of what power is, of how power works, and of how power is to be resisted." This is especially true of "entertainment." Power that may not seem like power--only, say, like "fun" or "amusement"--can be especially powerful. A thread that connects all of our texts will be: how has the systemic critique of social contradictions been popularized as compelling and fascinating in modern times? A related concern: what are the seductions and violence built into "enjoyment"--"enjoyment" that reproduces "Americans"? We will "entertain" the diverse strategies that progressive moviemakers have developed to entertain Americans--to teach, persuade, seduce, provoke, upset, anger, and move them through laughter, tears, and not least of all ideas--so that Americans will be more inclined to "entertain" social critique that inspires and envisions social change.
Our critical focus will be on the popularizing (and sometimes the selling) of social critique in movies including: Straight Outta Compton, Malcolm X, Medium Cool, Network, El Norte, Smoke Signals, Before the Flood, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Salt of the Earth, Matewan, and The Big Short. We will place special emphasis on self-reflexive movies about "entertainment" and about labor/social movement organizing. Entertainment, we will see, plays a key role in organizing--and reorganizing--Americans. In doing so it can place limits on our vision of what--and who--needs to be changed. By putting our movies in conceptual dialogue, and making these limits more visible, we will help one another think, see, and feel beyond these limits. As we are "entertained"--and we will be--we will consider the stakes of being "entertained." |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(ENGL)(FGSS)(FILM-MN)(HRAD-MN) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
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-Michael Moore, 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films (essay) (2014)
--STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON (2015, Gary Gray)
--Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How Do We Change America? The Quest to Transform this Country Cannot Be Limited to Challenging Its Brutal Police (essay) (2020)
--Jeff Cohen, Let Us Name the System: Racial Capitalism (essay) (2020)
--MALCOLM X (1992, Spike Lee)
--A. Philip Randolph, Lynching: Capitalism Its Cause, Socialism Its Cure (essay) (1919)
--Malcolm X, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X (1965)
--THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION (2015, Stanley Nelson, Jr.)
--The Black Panthers (essays), We Must Develop a United Front Against Fascism (1969), The Black Panther Party: Toward the Liberation of the Colony" (1969), On Establishing a United Front with the Communists (1969)
--MEDIUM COOL (1969, Haskell Wexler)
--EL NORTE (1984, Gregory Nava)
--IN THE SERVICE OF THE SHADOWS: THE MAKING OF EL NORTE (1969)
--SMOKE SIGNALS (1998, Chris Eyre [Cheyenne, Arapaho])
--BEFORE THE FLOOD (2016, Fisher Stevens), Leonardo DiCaprio
--SALT OF THE EARTH (1954, Herbert Biberman)
--THE HOLLYWOOD TEN (short video) (1950, John Berry)
--MATEWAN (1987, John Sayles)
--Eric Foner, MATEWAN (Foner's conversation with Sayles) (essay length) (1995)
--THE BIG SHORT (2015, Adam McKay)
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Economic Bill of Rights (video) (1944)
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Examinations and Assignments:
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TBA
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Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
: Most of the movies we will unpack will be streamed (free of charge). A few may only be available on NETFLIX, so students will need access to a NETFLIX account.
Contributes to fulfillment of ENGL major requirements: Literary History 3 and American Literature, elective |
| Instructor(s): Pfister,Joel Times: .M..... 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: RUSSMILLET; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 4 | | |
| Seats Available: 4 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 1 | JR non-major: 1 | SO: 5 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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