WRIT 335/HUM 335 : Writing about Film

Visual rhetoric can be understood as visual argument (or an argument using images). This course encourages students to explore and write about non-traditional forms of rhetoric drawing from a wealth of topics related to film genres, ancient rhetorical genres, and film studies. This is not a film appreciation course but rather a writing and rhetoric course that encourages students to engage with the way in which visual culture communicates and makes arguments. Each week, students will explore and write about a different film genre and its particular concerns. They might, for example, explore arguments about gender and sexuality in the post-war genre of Film Noir. In this case, we students would combine psychological theory with gender studies in their written analyses of films like Double Indemnity or Gilda. Alternately, by exploring the early documentaries of Robert Flaherty and Dziga Vertov, students might ask how do we understand “realism” and, in the process, how do we understand what is included and what is left out of their versions of reality? Analyses of movies in this course will turn on the fundamental examination of how meaning is created through the power of artistic vision and visual technology.