Michael K. Johnson English 297: Literature and Film, Fall 2005 Meets Roberts 131 Wednesday 3:50–7:00 p.m. Syllabus Required texts Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven Jane Austen, Emma Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Course description

Literature and Film involves the study of filmed adaptations of literary works, with an emphasis on investigating the narrative and artistic similarities of literature and film as well as the unique characteristics of each medium. As Literature and Film is an English course, one of our primary goals will be to carry out that investigation through short essays that will also help you to continue to develop your writing skills. We also will work to develop in general the vocabulary and techniques of both literary and cinematic analysis characteristic of a sophisticated understanding and appreciation of literature and film, and we will work to develop the ability to use that vocabulary within the specialized writing situation of the analytical essay. By the end of the course, I hope that you will have developed the skills that will make you a more analytical and critical spectator and reader.

The analysis of films adapted from works of literature is rapidly becoming its own field of study, one that draws concepts and vocabulary from both of the more established disciplines of cinema and literary studies, and one that is also developing its own specialized vocabulary and theoretical principles. In choosing books and films for the course, I have emphasized pairings  that will enable us to discuss the art, craft, and politics involved in transforming a literary text into a cinematic one. In the first part of the course, we will focus on a single book/movie pair (fiction by Sherman Alexie and Smoke Signals, the film based on that book). Later, we will look at two books (Emma and Frankenstein) that have provided source material for multiple adaptations, and we will use those often very different versions of these books as a way into discussing different theories for classifying adaptations. We will also ask what the differences between a book and its filmed adaptation--and between one adaptation of a book and another--reveal about the political, historical, and social context in which the film was produced.

Finally, we will turn to J.K. Rowling’s popular Harry Potter series, which has also spawned a number of films, including the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We will focus primarily on discussing award-winning director Alfonso Cuaron’s interpretation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but we will also want to discuss how different directors throughout the series of Harry Potter films have interpreted and represented differently on screen such repeated elements of the series as the setting of Hogwarts and individual characters. Thus, I recommend (but do not require) viewing the first two films of the series. As a class, we will watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when it opens in November.

Grades

Grades will be determined primarily by your performance on three essays. The first two essays will account for 25% of your final course grade and the third essay for 30%. Such factors as attendance, quiz performance, response essays, participation, and preparedness will contribute to the final 20% of the course grade. As this class is process as well as product oriented, your participation in all aspects of that process (reading, discussing, and actively watching the films as well as writing) is essential to the completion of the course requirements. When we watch movies, the class will be divided into smaller groups with each group responsible for analyzing particular elements (e.g., lighting, or special effects) of the film. Even if you have seen a film before, we need you here to contribute your part to the analysis of the film as a whole. Excessive absences (more than two), excused or unexcused, will damage your course grade, and I reserve the right to lower any person's semester grade if that person has more than two unexcused absences.

Quizzes: There will be reading quizzes over each book. We also will have periodic quizzes over the films, which may also include questions to test your understanding of the terminology and vocabulary we will be using for our discussions. Quizzes will be in the form of a 15-20 minute written response to a general question, a short 5-10 minute response to a list of objective questions, or a response paper discussing a film that we’ve screened.

Essays: The essays for this class should be completed in a professional and timely manner. A more detailed discussion of requirements for essays will be included on individual assignments. As this is an English course, your grade on the essays will be determined primarily by the quality of your writing.  Each essay should have an original, specific, and significant thesis--an arguable assertion that you are making about the work being discussed.  Each essay should provide textual evidence (quotations) in support of that thesis, and each essay should provide a well-developed analysis, discussion, and interpretation of that evidence. The papers that receive the highest grades will be well argued and well supported. That evidence and support will come from the books and the films, so be prepared to take careful notes while watching the films.

Additionally, you will be required to write a short (approximately 250 words) response essay for most of the full-length films. These response essays will provide a major contribution to your participation grade. The essays will be descriptive and analytical and focused on a particular topic. That topic will usually derive from the element of film that you've been assigned to pay attention to for a particular movie. Thus, your response paper might involve a description and analysis of the costumes used in Smoke Signals. These response papers will be written in class and will be based on the notes you take while watching the films.

For papers, I assign letter grades that can be translated in terms of the following numerical values: C− (72), C (75), C+ (78). There are some exceptions to this pattern. An F corresponds to the numerical grade of 50. An assignment that is not completed will receive a grade of zero. Because the grade D− does not exist for me, a D grade will be assigned the value of 62. An A will be assigned the numerical value 100, an A− 95.

The DVDs of the films will be placed on reserve at Mantor Library. Rooms and equipment are available for viewing the films in the library. After the screening, I won't put the film on reserve until we're through discussing it in class.  Watching more than once a film that you are going to be writing about is a good idea, and all the films will be available for reviewing at Mantor.

Please note that any student who needs accommodations in this course because of a disability should notify me at the beginning of the semester so that arrangements can be made.

Plagiarism

As the publicity surrounding historian Stephen Ambrose's failure to use quotation marks to indicate direct quotations from the work of other historians indicates, borrowing someone else's words without appropriate acknowledgement is still frowned upon—despite the fact that the internet has made such intellectual theft easier than ever before. I expect students to act "in good faith" in doing original written work for the class. If a student violates that trust (even if it only involves a sentence or two lifted from an internet source without properly acknowledging the original), the punishment for plagiarism will be at minimum a failing grade on a particular assignment and at maximum failure of the course.