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
Offered through
Slavic Languages and Literatures
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
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
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