What was that whooshing sound? Oh: the week going by.
My undergrad pal Olivia called me on Friday; her job in the Alumni Village infant-toddler care center affords her a view of my apartment.
“Did you move? I didn’t see your car all week.”
I groaned; “That’s because I was never home!”
The two courses I started last Monday are Critical Traditions and Film Pedagogy and they had me (and everyone else in them) running ragged all week – and will continue to do so, I have no doubt, for the remaining five weeks. Critical Traditions examines major critical thought in the western timeline from Plato and Aristotle through our time. Ouch. My brain hurts. In addition to writing a research paper applying one of the critical approaches we study to a novel, play or film, we have to teach a 60-minute class on a different theory; I drew Walter Benjamin’s “A Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” which intrigued me when we touched on it in Modern Humanities.
Film Pedagogy prepares us to teach a junior-level course on American film in relation to culture. In addition to attending the two classes every day, we also find time to visit, as observers, four classrooms where the Film course is currently being taught, and watch a film most nights – for a total of 22 over the six weeks. Last week we saw High Noon, The Searchers, Napoleon Dynamite, and The Stepford Wives. On Tuesday I gave a report on the rise of the studio system, having gotten the assignment on Monday. (!) The course is also one big teaching lab – instead of lectures, each session is taken up with students reporting on chapters in the text, or assigned articles, or one of the films, or the classroom visitations.
There are 25 of us; a slight majority being new incoming master’s in humanities, a few current master’s, and a handful of doctoral students. I initially had little interest in taking this course or teaching the film course; but Dr. Crook, the professor (former classmate of Roger Ebert in Film Studies, has taught film for 30+ years,) pointed out that having this experience will definitely help us find jobs. Cultural values were disseminated (art-wise) largely through poetry in the 18th century and novels in the 19th century; in our times, film is the dominant medium; so being able to teach film is a definite plus, as is being comfortable with the technology of the “smart” classroom. My teaching experience – some of it in “smart” classrooms – is a real help to me here and for that I am grateful.
I spent the week wishing heartily that I knew as much about films as my brother Gordon and thinking what fun it would be if he were here taking the course with me. And I noticed yet again how delightful (to me, anyway) most Humanities students and teachers are. They have such enthusiasm, such intellectual curiosity and wonder, and just in general tend to be articulate, upbeat and well-balanced people who find the world a wonderful place – which really is no wonder after all, given the fascinating subjects they study.
Thank heaven for the three-day weekend – I’m about 6 articles behind at the moment and need to get a jump on next week’s readings.
“Did you move? I didn’t see your car all week.”
I groaned; “That’s because I was never home!”
The two courses I started last Monday are Critical Traditions and Film Pedagogy and they had me (and everyone else in them) running ragged all week – and will continue to do so, I have no doubt, for the remaining five weeks. Critical Traditions examines major critical thought in the western timeline from Plato and Aristotle through our time. Ouch. My brain hurts. In addition to writing a research paper applying one of the critical approaches we study to a novel, play or film, we have to teach a 60-minute class on a different theory; I drew Walter Benjamin’s “A Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” which intrigued me when we touched on it in Modern Humanities.
Film Pedagogy prepares us to teach a junior-level course on American film in relation to culture. In addition to attending the two classes every day, we also find time to visit, as observers, four classrooms where the Film course is currently being taught, and watch a film most nights – for a total of 22 over the six weeks. Last week we saw High Noon, The Searchers, Napoleon Dynamite, and The Stepford Wives. On Tuesday I gave a report on the rise of the studio system, having gotten the assignment on Monday. (!) The course is also one big teaching lab – instead of lectures, each session is taken up with students reporting on chapters in the text, or assigned articles, or one of the films, or the classroom visitations.
There are 25 of us; a slight majority being new incoming master’s in humanities, a few current master’s, and a handful of doctoral students. I initially had little interest in taking this course or teaching the film course; but Dr. Crook, the professor (former classmate of Roger Ebert in Film Studies, has taught film for 30+ years,) pointed out that having this experience will definitely help us find jobs. Cultural values were disseminated (art-wise) largely through poetry in the 18th century and novels in the 19th century; in our times, film is the dominant medium; so being able to teach film is a definite plus, as is being comfortable with the technology of the “smart” classroom. My teaching experience – some of it in “smart” classrooms – is a real help to me here and for that I am grateful.
I spent the week wishing heartily that I knew as much about films as my brother Gordon and thinking what fun it would be if he were here taking the course with me. And I noticed yet again how delightful (to me, anyway) most Humanities students and teachers are. They have such enthusiasm, such intellectual curiosity and wonder, and just in general tend to be articulate, upbeat and well-balanced people who find the world a wonderful place – which really is no wonder after all, given the fascinating subjects they study.
Thank heaven for the three-day weekend – I’m about 6 articles behind at the moment and need to get a jump on next week’s readings.
posted by Kathy at 7/02/2005 02:28:00 PM
2 Comments:
I didn't know that about Ebert -- I agree that he's a great critic. I stopped watching TV a couple of decades ago (don't even own one at this point)and only see it at other people's houses. Don't miss it a bit and when I do see it, the programming seems really bizarre to me. I'm planning to see "Bewitched" this weekend -- I used to enjoy the series. I guess the TV shows one grows up with are like the music of one's youth -- we retain our affection for them when in truth they, too, were pretty weird.
Could be -- but I've noticed that people tend to be unaware of (or overly optimistic about) the amount of time they spend in front of the tube, and that one show they watch just sort of expands to about 6 hours every evening. Or it just stays on all the time as kind of a background noise. I know a couple of people who can't go to sleep without the TV on.
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