Aims

- In consonance with the overall aims of the degrees offered in the SML to build on skills gained at Stages 1 and 2, and to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of aspects of Algerian society, culture, and cinema.
- To prepare students for postgraduate study in the area of French Cultural Studies,Film Studies, or Postcolonial Studies.
- To develop students’ language skills in spoken and written French, especially in the areas of North African society, culture and cinema, and the related fields of geopolitics and the postcolonial.

Outline Of Syllabus

This module will study 6 key Algerian films (1960s—2000s) as a means of investigating the traditions, taboos, and developments in modern Algerian culture and society. Films will be chosen from a diversity of genres and from different decades during the years since Algerian independence in 1962. Particular attention will be paid to issues regarding the construction and representation of gender, conflict, language, trauma, regional and national identities.

Films to be studied may include:La Bataille d’Alger, Omar Gatlato, Machaho, Viva Laldjérie, Barakat!, Rome plutôt que vous, Mascarades, Lettre a ma soeur. The intention is to broaden and deepen students’ understanding of Algerian society and culture via the analysis of film texts that engage with key issues in this often misunderstood but geopolitically very significant nation.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The module will explore key aspects of modern Algerian culture and society as expressed through cinema. Films will be chosen from a diversity of genres and decades during the years since Algerian independence in 1962. Particular attention will be paid to issues regarding the construction and representation of gender, conflict, language, trauma, regional and national identities. Films to be studied may include: La Bataille d’Alger, Omar Gatlato, Machaho, Viva Laldjérie, Barakat!, Rome plutôt que vous, Mascarades, Lettre a ma soeur. The intention is to broaden and deepen students’ understanding of Algerian society and culture via the analysis of film texts, but it is to be noted that this is not a film studies module as such. It is interdisciplinary in approach, combining film analysis with approaches derived from postcolonial studies, trauma studies, modern history, and cultural studies. Students will be expected to read the preparatory texts closely as lectures will assume knowledge of these, and seminars will entail analysis of film sequences in small groups followed by class debate. The following skills will be developed:
Preparatory work for the lectures and seminars: bibliographical work, planning and organizing, independent study.
Lectures: Note-taking.
Seminars: Note-taking, teamwork (including initiative, adaptability and interpersonal communication), arguing opinions, analysing sequences, oral communication and presentation skills, problem solving.
Plus optional film screenings: one per week.
NB: THIS MODULE WILL BE TAUGHT AND ASSESSED ENTIRELY IN FRENCH.

Seminars will be conducted face to face but lectures online. My teaching experience these last two years has indicated that this is a very effective mode of delivery for lecture materials, and that students like it.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

*They will be required to give feedback on each others’ work, and will also receive feedback from module teacher.

The summative assessment is in two parts:
1.       Oral presentation (in French with visual aids eg Powerpoint and/or film clips) (20%). Students must deliver a brief presentation (15 mins max) on a key sequence or sequences within a set film. The exercise is designed to test students’ oral presentation skills in French as well as their facility in handling visual materials and their ability to analyse film in detail, explaining how themes are represented cinematically.

2.       Essay of 3000 words (80%), in which students will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of social and cultural context, an analysis of set film texts, and an ability to engage critically with appropriate academic sources. Questions will be designed to test the students' ability to draw on their awareness of key issues in Algerian culture and society, and to demonstrate how these issues are expressed in film. They are expected to demonstrate links between their own analysis of the film/s and the broader socio-cultural concepts discussed in lectures, in order to show their overall understanding of Algerian culture. Students will be expected to have acquired a good knowledge of relevant scholarly writing as well as of the set films themselves. This component of the assessment will also be in French and will allow students to demonstrate the ability to communicate ideas and arguments fluently and succinctly in French, and to develop the following skills: independent research, bibliographical work, planning and organizing, word-processing, footnoting and referencing.
In addition, there will be a formative assessment. This will be set in the first half of the semester and will take the form of an extended essay introduction. Students will have to reflect on the purpose of the introduction in setting out the hypothesis, key debates and in outlining the plan of the essay, and provide feedback on a colleague’s work. This exercise will help develop the following skills: critical review, developing and communicating an argument, planning and organising. Teamwork and interpersonal communication, problem solving.