Daniel Keyes
Courses 2008 - 2009
English 151 Reading Literature II Term I 2007
This course teaches students how to map a variety of literary theories (formalism, feminism, sociological, etc.) onto fiction: three novels and ten short stories. We will consider how narrative form shapes content and explore the tension between fiction that teaches versus fiction that pleases.
The novels we will read are
- Williams Well Brown’s 1853 Clotel or the President’s Daughter, which is the first novel published by an African American in 1853 as the abolitionist movement sought to demonstrate that slave were humans.
- Ishmael Reed’s 1970’s history bending satire Flight to Canada, which mirrors the 1970s and the 1860s to argue that slavery persists in America.
- Charles Burns’ coming-of-age, graphic novel Black Hole set in Seattle in the late 1970s where teenage sex results in genetic mutation.
The fiction selected for this course deals with sexuality, race, class, and gender and has been selected to promote active and respectful discussion.
CULT 315 Television Studies Term I 2007 New Course
This course examines the medium of television from a global perspective to investigate how genres in different television broadcast regimes shape content and the reception.
In the last 60 years television has shaped popular mass culture as a ubiquitous, disposable, electronic flow of information, entertainment, and consumerism. This course provides a number of approaches to understanding television and the power of its varied representations by invoking a comparative approach.
CULT 210/ENGL 215 Reading Film Term II 2008-2009
This course locates film not only as a source for aesthetic appreciation but as a medium of mass entertainment that arguably shapes the collective imagination. Toward the goal of analysing its wide cultural role, students will be acquainted with both the production and reception of film.
The first six weeks of the course introduce the early history of film and the technical terms necessary to critically discuss the construction of synchronized sound and images. The second half of the course explores the critical discourse on film in relation to genres and film theory. This section will focus on producing critical “readings” of films as your own form of cultural production.
CULT 300/ENGL 378 Documentary and Docudrama Term II 2008-2009
In the context of mass culture where “reality” television genres dominate commercial television offerings and do-it-yourself documentary proliferate on video sharing websites like Youtube.com, this course investigates the reality effect of film by tracing its origins in the genres of documentary and docudrama. This course examines histo-photography –how history is shown, narrated, framed, edited with celluloid.
The first few weeks of this course investigate how the conventions of photographic realism and stage naturalism evolved via technological advances in photography and theatre. We will sample a 19th century play by Dion Boucicault to explore how documentary, docudrama, and melodrama are bound together via technologies. In subsequent weeks, we will first examine early “primitive” documentary and historical docudrama and then move from modern to postmodern examples of these genres.
CULT 305/ENGL 377 English Canadian Film Not Offered in 2008-2009
This course studies the development of English Canadian film by concentrating on various movements and forms (the feature fiction film, documentary, direct cinema, and experimental film) as they have evolved in the work of “English Canadian” filmmakers.
Questions of American cultural imperialism, colonization, nationalism and national identity, multiculturalism, aboriginality, and regionalism have been central to Canadian culture generally, and they are crucial to understanding the context of film production and reception in this country. This course pays attention to film making and distribution as a marginal activity in Canada that has inspired various “margins” to adopt this technology.
Last reviewed 
5/29/2008 2:04:20 PM
