FF:CMAa14 Research in Cinema and Theatre - Course Information

CMAa14 Research in Cinema and Theatre History

The course is not taught in Spring 2023

Extent and Intensity

2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).

Teacher(s)

doc. MgA. David Drozd, Ph.D. (lecturer)
doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D. (lecturer)

Guaranteed by

doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts

Course Enrolment Limitations

The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.

fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with

• Culture, Media and Performative Arts (programme FF, B-MA)

Course objectives

The objective of the course is to establish a solid knowledge of methodological procedures and theoretical concepts that will enable students to ask proper research questions, as well as to build up a relevant research’s profile in the field of cinema and theatre history. All of the methodological approaches and conceptual frameworks will be illustrated in details on exemplary research projects and their findings.

Learning outcomes

After finishing this course, students will be able to critically evaluate and use a range of theoretical concepts to formulate quality research hypotheses, will be oriented in paradigmatic literature related to the presented research areas, will be ready to prepare and realize a relevant research project from the field of the cultural history of cinema and theatre.

Syllabus

• 1. Hello, Archives!
• In the 1970s, “New Film History” was formed on the platform of shared demand to base historical research on primary sources. At first, historians focused on early cinema as the field where the classical history needs a revision urgently. One of the forming discussions evolved around Tom Gunning’s concept of the Cinema of Attractions. The original concept and the following controversies will be used for an exploration of the impetus the revisionist new film history brought into the field.
• 2. Audiences, Cinemas, Maps, and Databases
• About 30 years later, some film historians, sociologists, economists, and cultural historians react to the appeals of interdisciplinary research and new digital tools at their disposal by an effort to establish “New Cinema History”. Two American researchers, Richard Maltby and Robert C. Allen, tested and defined the new terrain. The new capacities of researching cinema audiences with the support of digital tools will be discussed.
• 3. Temporalities, Continuities, Scales
• An exploration in cinema history demands a choice of a perspective. Different concepts, sources, and tools are needed for different research questions. Do we focus on long-term changes, or on an influence of a historical event? Do we search for continuities, or changes? Influential concepts of social historians and sociologists (Fernand Braudel and William H. Sewell, among others) will be applied to researching on cinema history.
• 4. Transnational Histories. Comparison and Transfer in Historical Research
• We will discuss merits, risks and drawbacks of comparative approach. What we can compare, and what could be a result of a comparison? How productive a research on processes of cultural transfers can be? How preferences of national audiences can be compared, and what we can find about, e.g., the alleged global dominance of Hollywood cinema?
• 5. Local Cinema History
• How we can research on the history of cinema culture of a national state, of a city, a village, a quarter, or of an individual cinema venue? Ethnohistory focused on local perspective produces new questions and new findings.
• 6. Spaces of Ethnicity, Religion, and Politics
• We will use the examples of the “pillarized” Belgian society and the nationally divided space of inter-war Czechoslovakia to understand the dynamic relationship between cinema culture, on one side, and religious, ethnical, or political identity, on the other side.
• 7. Spaces of Class, Gender, and Age
• As any other public space, and even more than most of them, cinema venues had always been embroiled into the distinctions constructed along the axis of class, gender, or age of actual, potential, intended, or just imagined cinema-goers. A few illustrative examples spread across the cinema history will be discussed.
• 8. ???
• ???
• 9. Oral History in Film Studies
• With an accent on researches on European audiences, we will critically evaluate the projects’ designs and findings. What oral history can do, and how? How to ask questions about the past experiences? What we can – and what we can not – find out by this method? Examples of research findings from various European cities, including Magdeburg, Bari, Rome, Brno, Leicester, or Gent, will be presented and critically re-evalutad.
• 10. Agency and Structure in the Historical Research
• How we can do a research on producers, directors, managers, dramaturges, or cinema owners? Research that avoids limits of a descriptive biography needs to take into account that a historical agent is substantially limited by structural factors and his capacity to act depends on the available capital. Concepts of William H. Sewell and Pierre Bourdieu will be presented and applied to the research of cinema industry.
• 11. Clients, Patrons, Brokers
• We will discuss a few influential ethnographical and sociological concepts which can be productively applied on researching the cinema industry.

Literature

required literature
• Fischer-Lichte, E., Riley, J., & Gissenwehrer, M. (1990). The dramatic touch of difference: Theatre, own and foreign. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
• Jeffrey Klenotic: “Like Nickels in a Slot”: Children of the American Working Classes at the Neighborhood Movie House”. The Velvet Light Trap: A Critical Journal of Film and Television, vol. 48, Fall 2001, pp. 20-33
• Peter Kramer: Hollywood and its global audiences: A comparative study of the biggest box office hits in the United States and outside the United States since the 1970s. In: Richard Maltby – Daniel Biltereyst – Philippe Meers (eds.), Cinema, Audiences and
• Kevin Corbett: Ba sounds and sticky floors: an ethnographic look at the symbolic value of historic small-town movie theaters. In: Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley (ed.), Hollywood in the Neighborhood: historical case studies of local moviegoing. University of Ca
• BALME, Christopher B. The globalization of theatre 1870-1930 : the theatrical networks of Maurice E. Bandmann. First published. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, xiv, 276. ISBN 9781108487894. info

Teaching methods

Opening discussion over the assigned reading; lecture presenting basic thesis through PowerPoint presentation, discussing application through examples of implemented research projects.

Assessment methods

Brief tests checking the knowledge of seminar reading and understanding of the lecture – 20%; final written test – 40%; an outline of a research project – 40%.

Language of instruction

English

• Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2023, recent)
  
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