2024 Summer SLAVIC R5B 002 LEC 002

2024 Summer Session D 6 weeks, July 1 - August 9

SLAVIC R5B 002 - LEC 002

Reading and Composition

The Intermedial Avant-Garde: Thinking Aesthetics and Politics Across Media

Lucas Edward Plazek, Robyn M Jensen

Jul 01, 2024 - Aug 09, 2024
Tu, We, Th
10:00 am - 12:29 pm
Internet/Online
Class #:14320
Units:4

Instruction Mode: Online

Current Enrollment

Total Open Seats: 4
Enrolled: 13
Waitlisted: 0
Capacity: 17
Waitlist Max: 3
No Reserved Seats

Course Catalog Description

Reading and composition course based on works of Russian and other Slavic writers, either written in English or translated into English. As students develop strategies of writing and interpretation, they will become acquainted with a particular theme in Russian and/or Slavic literatures and their major voices. R5A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R5B satisfies the second half.

Class Description

How does thinking across media—from cinema to graphic novels, from radio to TikTok—transform how we read cultural texts? How do artists and activists seeking radical politics develop their projects across a variety of media from the analog to the digital? This course takes seriously what it means to think across media and expands our view beyond the printed word and into a wider creative sphere. Taking examples from cinema, photography, sound, visual arts, and their cross-pollinations, we will consider how radical artists from the Soviet Union, socialist Yugoslavia, and the contemporary Global left have thought about and developed different revolutionary, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonial media aesthetics. As we move back and forth across media history, we will also develop and practice our skills as media readers by critically reading both verbal and visual texts. We will ask what it means to “read” a film versus a photograph, how hearing and seeing offer different modes of political engagement, and how digital technology and social media change the terrain of political media aesthetics today. This course fulfills the second half of the UC Reading & Composition requirement (R5B). As we work across media, we will also devote plenty of time to critical thinking and essay-writing skills, paying particular attention to argumentation, analysis, engaging with sources, and other fundamentals of writing and research at the college level. Course materials may include work from: Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Frantz Fanon, Chris Marker, Hito Steyerl, Heiny Srour, Tanja Ostojić, the Chto Delat group, Behrooz Boochani, Ari Folman & David Polonsky, Želimir Žilnik, Allan Sekula, and others.

Class Notes

Synchronous online instruction.
Taught in English with readings in English.

This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition require.. show more
Synchronous online instruction.
Taught in English with readings in English.

This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

Although very few courses are canceled, Berkeley Summer Sessions reserves the right to cancel a course if it does not reach minimum enrollments 4 weeks before the start of the session. In the case of a course cancellation, all enrolled students are notified by email, dropped from the class, and no longer charged for the class. See summer.berkeley.edu for all enrollment and fee policies. show less

Rules & Requirements

Requisites

  • Previously passed an R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Previously passed an articulated R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Score a 4 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Literature. Score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. Score of 5, 6, or 7 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examination in English.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills

Second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement

Reserved Seats

Current Enrollment

No Reserved Seats

Textbooks & Materials

Associated Sections

None