Introductory description

The module aims to enhance student’s understanding of Mediterranean history, culture, and identity. Cinema will be used to explore issues such as travel, tourism, migration, orientalism, colonialism and postcolonialism. Students will develop a detailed knowledge of the area, explore the impact of colonially and postcoloniality on national cultures, understand how the Sea has been narrated though moving images. The topics discussed will include the orientalist representation of early cinema and how Europeans have filmed in North Africa; French colonial cities and their struggle for independence; the Mediterranean as a site of conflicts and encounters; the role of islands as a cinematic place; the current migration crisis. The analysis of the texts will be informed by theories of the Mediterranean, culture and film studies, national identity construction. Students will develop an awareness of how terms such as transnationalism, post colonialism, orientalism can be applied to the Mediterranean case.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1 Introduction to Mediterranean identity. Travelling and silent cinema. Shorts films by the Lumière’s brothers in North Africa. Zohra by Albert Samama-Chikli (1922, Tunisia).
Week 2: Colonial France. Ce que le jour doit à la nuit (Alexandre Arcady, 2012) and Un été à la Goulette (Férid Boughedir, 1996).
Week 3: The Mediterranean in the interwar. La Bandera (1935, Julien Duvivier, set in Spain and Morocco) and Pépé le Moko (1937, Julien Duvivier, set in Algeria)
Week 4: World War II. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942, set in Morocco). Neapolitan episode of Paisan (Roberto Rossellini, 1946).
Week 5: Islands. Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini, 1950) Caro Diario (ep. Islands).
Week 6: Reading week
Week 7: Decolonisation. The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966, set in Algeria)
Week 8: Migration crisis: Mediterraneo: The Law of the Sea (Marcel Barrena, 2021) and Mediterranea (Jonas Carpignano, 2015)
Week 9: Tourism. Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard, 2010)
Week 10: Exile. Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018, set in Marseille)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Level 6: Demonstrate a sophisticated and systematic understanding of key aspects of the Mediterranean history and identity, including acquisition of coherent and detailed knowledge of how it developed though time
• Level 6: Ability to critically analyse and evaluate films by applying key concepts and principles of film theory
• Level 6: Demonstrate an ethical awareness of diversity and transcultural connectedness in relation to Mediterranean culture. Show sensitivity to cultural and linguistic contexts.
• Level 6: Apply and extend knowledge obtained from lecture presentations and seminar discussions. Conduct independent scholarship and work on their own initiative to manage their learning.
• Level 6: Apply and extend their knowledge of the complex Mediterranean history and identity to other contexts
• Level 5: Demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of key aspects of the Mediterranean history and identity, including acquisition of coherent knowledge of how it developed though time
• Level 5: Ability to critically analyse films by applying key concepts and principles of film theory
• Level 5: Demonstrate familiarity with interconnected features of Mediterranean cultures, showing sensitivity to diverse cultural and linguistic contexts.
• Level 5: Use lecture presentations and seminar discussions to inform independent research and manage their own learning.
• Level 5: Apply knowledge of the Mediterranean history and identity to other contexts

Indicative reading list

Core texts:
films in the syllabus
Hakim Abderrezak, Ex-Centric Migrations. Europe and the Maghreb in Mediterranean Cinema, Literature, and Music, Indiana University Press, 2016
Iain Chambers, Mediterranean Crossings. The politics of an interrupted modernity, Duke University Press, 2008.
Claudio Fogu and Lucia Re, “Italy in the Mediterranean Today: A New Critical Topography”, California Italian Studies, 1 (1).
Michel Serceau, “The Difficult Construction of a Mediterranean Cinematic Area”, IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook 2007
Michael G. Vann, “Colonial Cinema and Imperial France, 1919-1939: White Blind Spots, Male Fantasies, and Settler Myths”, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2003

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ capacity to engage with aspects of Mediterranean culture through analysis of visual culture and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of Mediterranean cinema will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field. Students will also learn how to closely analyse a film, as a text with its internal rules and language, and they will also learn to look at the context - the production, interactions of different players (director, screenwriters, producers etc). They will also develop intercultural awareness by looking at diverse cultural components of the Mediterranean area.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.