MEDIA 729

Film Evil


Please note: this is archived course information from 2019 for MEDIA 729.

Description

This course looks at the theme of evil in the cinema. Why is it that conceptions of evil and its nature and source,  distinctions between natural and moral evil and what belongs to God versus to the human race have formed so much of the subject matter and undergone so many transformations in film? What can films teach us about evil? And what about the proposition that some films may themselves be evil? 

Through a number of  theoretical readings that draw on a psychoanalytical understanding of evil —including texts by Immanuel Kant on "radical evil", Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of Auschwitz, Alain Badiou on the self-evidence and necessity of evil, Alenka Zupancic on rethinking the concept of evil, Terry Eagleton on the rarity of pure evil, Jacques Lacan on how the pure ethical attitude is inextricably linked to the pleasure of violence, Slavoj Žižekon "loving  thy neighbour" and violence, George Bush and "the axis of evil" and current reflections on looming climatic and nuclear disasters —we will address the working structures of the evil event in the cinema.

View the course syllabus

Availability 2019

Semester 1

Lecturer(s)

Lecturer(s) Professor Laurence Simmons

Points

MEDIA 729: 30 points

Restrictions

FTVMS 729