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1 Credit Block II Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival Courses AvailableContributed by Warren Schlesinger on 11/07/17 Students may now register for FLEFF mini-courses/seminars offered in Block II after spring break. Courses cover a variety of disciplines. The course titles are below followed by more detailed information.
Detailed Course Descriptions: 1. Stewart Auyash FLEFF: Geographies and Cartographies of Health and Drug Use Geography conjures many faces of the publics’ health. Location, location, location, the real estate agents tell us, determines the value of a home. It also determines our health status including the use of drugs. Placement of railroads and highways that separate neighborhoods, proximity to affordable food markets and vegetable stands, access to recreation, open spaces, safe schools, and employment opportunities have fateful consequences for a community’s health. The course explores the intersections of health, geography and drug use. As part of FLEFF, the course will study this topic through films, new media, maps, readings, and guest speakers. Students will also participate in the FLEFF films and activities. (1 credit Block II, TR, 4-5:15 Hill Center G10) 2. Sue-Je Gage Excluded Spaces and Empowering Places Cultural landscapes are an example of how humans interact and create geography. The physical environment is thought to either limit or nurture the development of various aspects of culture. Studies include the human impact on nature, the impact of nature on humans, and people’s perception of the environment. Students in this mini-course will learn how anthropologists examine geographies through feminist theory and apply their learning to specific geographies in Ithaca, domestically and globally. Wednesdays 1-3:30 PM Center for Natural Sciences 118 3. Matt Holtmeier FLEFF: Political Geographies: Dwelling, Migration, Labor This course will examine contemporary films dealing with the effects of globalization, including economic disparities, war, migrant labor, immigration, occupation, and environmental destruction from an eco-philosophical perspective. The three eco-philosophies to be discussed include Martin Heidegger’s concept of dwelling, Felix Guattari’s three ecologies, and Arne Næss’s ecological self. Each explores the political and philosophical ramifications of being uprooted. Mondays 4-6:30 pm March 20th – April 17th. Friends Hall 208 4. Chris House FLEFF: Narrative Geographies and Rhetorical Landmines Why do audiences make some films popular and not others? What does that tell us about the kinds of narratives that resonate with mass audiences? How do some films convey messages that function as cultural landmines and others have underlying messages that shift digital, cultural, economic, ideological, social, environmental, and political landscapes? In this class we discuss how filmmakers function as dominant storytellers through their uses of narratives, words, images and sounds to rhetorically engage current debates and issues. As such, we consider the methods of rhetorical criticism to help uncover their arguments and implications. In this course students will write reflections on required readings and films and attend FLEFF screenings. Wednesdays 4-6:30 PM Block II Friends Hall 208 5. Jerry Mirskin FLEFF: Subduction Zones: How underlying conditions lead to social conflict as represented in contemporary film. A recent New York Times article explains why Mexico is prone to earthquakes. Mexico is located on a "Subduction zone, a "part of the earth where one slab of the crust is slowly sliding under another...." "Subduction zone" is a useful metaphor for representing how social conflict results from the pressure that builds up when underlying forces compete and collide. The class will read an essay by the social philosopher, Wendell Berry, as a way of creating a "template" of ideal--"stress-free"-- community life. We'll view films in the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival as well as Spike Lee's film, Do the Right Thing, and discuss the extent to which our "template" accounts for the social friction and destruction represented in the films. Wednesdays, March 21 – April 18 6-8:30 PM Smiddy Hall 112 6. James Pfrehm FLEFF: Audiences Unite! Language and Discourse in the Modern Cinema of Activism Have you ever seen a film that inspired you to act? Have you walked out of the movie theater feeling agitated about the state of the world? This course will lead you to better understand one aspect that made the film so impactful: its language. In this course, students will explore the language and discursive motifs of films that aim to engage audiences in social and/or environmental activism that successfully—and unsuccessfully—call their audience to action. Friends Hall 207 Sat. March 24, 11 am – 3 pm Sat. March 31, 11 am – 3 pm Sat. April 21, 11 am – 3 pm. 7. Amy Quan FLEFF: Mapping our Worlds Maps can both reveal new territories and hide old secrets, show us multiple views of the world and also chronicle the havoc we wreak. In conjunction with the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival and using the "Atlas" works of Rebecca Solnit as our guide, this course will focus on the layered geographies and mappings of the Finger Lakes. Students will be encouraged to blend genres and media to complicate what we think we see and know about this region. As the semester ends, students will “map” a terrain of their choosing as they examine their relationship to a particular place. MWF 3:00 - 3:50 Block II Smiddy Hall 108 8. Duncan Duke Technology, Business Strategy, and Society In this mini-course, we will examine how the use of emergent technologies in new business models affect society. We will look at how technologies such as cloud computing and machine learning used by Facebook, Google, Amazon, and other companies affect society in terms of privacy, monopolies, individual rights, intellectual property rights, political discourse, inequality, and other issues. As part of this class students will attend a number of films and events during the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival that also explore these issues. Tuesday 2-3:50 pm Block II (1.5 credits) BUS 202 |
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