East & West in Film & Print

Fall 2007

Great Films & A Few Novels• Nobel Prize novelists• Internationally acclaimed filmmakers

Great Films & A Few Novels• Nobel Prize novelists• Internationally acclaimed filmmakers

6.6 billion people

1 won the Nobel Prize for Literature

Non-Traditional Cultures

The human condition.

Compare with Western Narratives

10 films + 3 novels (local narratives):

• Provide insight into different cultures

• Contemporary narratives told within the context of Western & Eastern metanarratives

• Most deal with the struggle of individuals trying to find meaning and fulfillment in the modern world:

-- Torn between traditional cultural values, personal beliefs, and the pressures

of the postmodern world

THE BIG THEMES

1. Metanarratives define cultures.

Metanarrative (Grand Narrative)• A global or totalizing cultural narrative

schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience.

• An explanation of reality considered to be a universal truth.

The Enlightenment Project.

Western modernization.

Marxism. Communism.

Christian fundamentalism.

Islamic fundamentalism.

Big stories that explain the big picture.

Stories unite people.

People kill because of stories.

“I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives."

Jean-François Lyotard

2. The world today is a battleground between Western & Eastern

narratives.

3. The world today is a battleground between postmodern and fundamentalist narratives.

Fundamentalists believe their story is “the one universal story.”

Postmodernists believe there are no universal truths—only local stories.

4. Your view of the world has been grossly distorted by the lies white Anglo-Saxon men have told you.

5. All local narratives are told within the context of metanarratives.

To appreciate a local narrative (foreign film or novel),

it helps to understand the metanarratives of that culture (religious, historical and

socio-political “myths”)

6. The modern artist is frequently an iconoclast who attacks metanarratives.

7. Secular humanism is becoming a grand narrative of the postmodern world.

8. Your identities have been socially constructed for you.

8. Your aesthetics have been socially constructed for you.

Western-educationWhite menHollywood

TVMTV

News mediaShopping mall

The purpose of this course is to stretch your aesthetic comfort zone.

“It was boring.”

“Where was the music?”

“It was too slow.”

“There was no action.”

“I, as an American student, (born and raised in suburbia, who considers going to the shopping mall a cultural experience, have a brain that has been socially constructed by Hollywood, MTV and the mass media, and hard-wired to accept only rapid moving eye-candy as pleasing visual stimuli--preferably with plenty of special effects, loud music, and ample sex and violence) am unable to receive, process or appreciate any visual or aural stimuli that is inconsistent with my cultural conditioning.”

There are other ways to view reality—beyond the Hollywood version of life.

Some of you may experience cultural shock.

It won’t hurt you.

Objectives

1. Increase your appreciation and understanding of contemporary non-Western cultures, through:

(a) an examination of acclaimed films and literature from selective Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures,

(b) the comparison of these works with representative Western films and novels.

Objectives

2. Demonstrate how your aesthetics are "socially constructed" and influenced by the metanarratives and complex value systems of your culture.

Encourage you to stretch your "aesthetic comfort zone" and become more open, emotionally and intellectually, to the aesthetics of other cultures.

Objectives

3. Illustrate how much of what we know about non-Western cultures has been distorted by and/or filtered through the "lenses" of our Western-biased educational system and media.

Objectives

4. Utilize contemporary world film and literature to stimulate thought and discussion about the major ideological battles occurring in the world today, specifically between the forces of fundamentalism (e.g., Islam and Christianity) and postmodernism, and the encroachment of Western values (e.g., capital materialism, secularism, rationalism, imperialism, technology, etc.) upon other cultures.

Objectives

5. Introduce you to new ways of looking at literature and film (through the various lenses of postmodern literary theory and film). Demonstrate how artistic style is reflective of an artist's philosophy.

Objectives

6. Discuss the role of the artist in contemporary society.

Objectives

7. Enhance your ability to view a film, or read a work of literature, with a critical, discerning eye, with the goal of developing more informed opinions and perspectives on contemporary film and literature.

Objectives

8. Sharpen your basic research, analytical, thinking, and writing skills--which are fundamental to success as a professional in a wide range of careers, including law, finance, education, health care, communications, and the sciences.

Objectives

9. Help you prepare for the global society in which you will live and work, by giving you a greater appreciation for the cultures of other nations, and a greater understanding of how contemporary cultures influence each other.

Three Courses in One1. Introduction to non-traditional cultures

2. Postmodern thought

• Social constructionism vs. fundamentalism

• Feminist theory

• Postcolonialism

• Post modern literary theory

3. Film theory

Multidisciplinary• Religion• Philosophy• History• Psychology• Feminist theory• Film theory• Music

Squeeze whatever wisdom

we can from each film and novel.

“The purpose of an education is to

negate your identity.”

--Lacan