MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural
Duration: 1 Year Full Time, 2 or 3 Years Part Time
Overview
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Minimum Entry Requirements: Minimum upper second class honours degree (or equivalent)
Venue: Russell Square: College Buildings
Start of programme: September
Mode of Attendance: Mixed Full Time and Part Time
The MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural offers students the unique opportunity to study in-depth regional cinemas outside the now standard research topographies, both geographical and theoretical, of mainstream cinema studies, so opening up avenues for advanced research in areas and methodologies as yet untapped. Alternatively, it provides an avenue of study for those simply wishing to obtain a post-graduate qualification in Cinema Studies without being confined to a European- and/or American-centric world-view.
The degree is designed around a compulsory core course, Cinema, Nation and the Transcultural, that simultaneously challenges existing critical paradigms defining 'national cinema' in the simplistic terms of geographical zones of production and reception, while offering alternative methodological approaches to the study of cinema within the local/global, inter-cultural contexts of the post-modern world. The elective elements of the degree allow students the opportunity to specialize in one or more of the many regional cinemas on offer in the School: Japanese, Chinese (mainland, Hong Kong & Taiwanese), mainland and maritime South East Asian, Indian, Iranian, Middle Eastern and African). It also enables students to combine specialist film studies knowledge with a minor course in an Asian or African language or to advance their social and cultural knowledge of a given region through an ethnographic course. Alternatively, through our links with Birkbeck College, students may choose from a selection of elective courses to further develop cross-cultural perspectives in an east/west framework.
Email: mediaandfilm@soas.ac.uk
Structure
Each student takes the Compulsory Course, the Dissertation and two Options of their choice.
1. Compulsory Core Course
- Cinema, Nation and the Transcultural (Course teacher: Isolde Standish)
Course assessment:
A critical essay based on theoretical issues relevant to cinema and the nation.
A critical essay based on a short research project (which may include a multimedia component)
Each student is also required to take at least ONE course (comprising either one whole course or two half courses) in Cinemas of Asia and Africa from section two below.
2. Compulsory courses in Cinemas of Asia and Africa
- Chinese Cinema and Media (0.5 unit) (not running 2009-10)
- Japanese Post-War Film Genres (0.5 unit)
- Post(colonialism) and Otherness in South East Asia on Screen (0.5 unit)
- Post Crisis Thai Cinema (0.5 unit)
- Genders and Sexualities in South East Asian Film (0.5 unit)
- Indian Cinema: History and Social Context (0.5 unit) (not running 2009-10)
- Indian Cinema: Key Issues(0.5 unit) (not running 2009-10)
- Iranian Cinema (0.5 unit)
- Arab Cinemas (0.5 unit)
- Aspects of African Film and Video (0.5 unit)
- Film and Society in the Middle East
- Issues in the Anthropology of Film (0.5 unit)
- Modern Chinese Film and Theatre (0.5 unit)
- Modern Film from Taiwan and the Chinese Diaspora (0.5 unit)
- Transnational Japanese Cinema from Kurosawa to Asia Extreme (0.5 unit)
Optional Courses:
Students may take up to one full course or equivalent from the following list:
3. Other Courses in the Centre for Media and Film Studies
- Rethinking Audiences (0.5 unit)
- Studies in Global Media and Post-national Communication (0.5 unit)
- Theoretical Issues in Media and Cultural Studies (0.5 unit)
- New Media and Society (0.5 unit)
- Media Production Skills (0.5 unit)
4. Courses in Social Anthropology
- The Culture and Society of a Selected Ethnographic Region: Chinese Culture and Society (1.0 unit)
- East African Culture and Society (1.0 unit)
- Japanese Culture and Society(1.0 unit)
- Near and Middle Eastern Culture and Society Aspects: C (1.0 unit)
- South Asian Culture and Society (1.0 unit)
- West African Culture and Society (1.0 unit)
- South East Asian Culture and Society (1.0 unit)
5. Courses in South Asian Studies
6. Courses from the following MA programmes offered by affiliated colleges in the University of London
- MA in the History of Film and Visual Media (Birkbeck College)
- MA Film Studies (Queen Mary)
- MA Screen Studies (Goldsmiths College)
- MA Contemporary Cinema Cultures (Kings College)
- MA Film Studies (UCL)
(SOAS students may take up to one half unit (0.5) course in each term from the list below – if choosing two 0.5 courses they must be at different colleges)
Birkbeck
- Living Apart Together: British Film and Television, 1960-82 (Term 2)
- Contemporary American Cinema (Term 1)
- European Cinema at the Crossroads: Post-war directions (Term 1)
- Melodrama: Hollywood and World Cinema (Term 1)
- Avant-Garde Film and Video (Term 2)
- When Old Media Were New: Exploring the origins of audiovisual media culture (Term 2)
- Queen Mary
- Comedies of Desire
- History, Fiction, Memory in French Cinema
- Hollywood and the 2 nd World War
- Paris on the Screen
- Sighting Gender and sexuality in Latin American Cinema
- Soviet Montage Cinema
Goldsmiths
- Cinema and Society
- Explorations in World Cinema
- First Film
Kings College
- Exploitation Cinema
- Media Aesthetics
- Thinking Cinema with Emmanuel Levinas: Theory, Philosophy, Ethics
- Contemporary French Cinema, 1990-2005: From Heritage Productions to the ‘New Extremism'
- London Film Culture
- Traditions of Post-War and Contemporary British Cinema
UCL
- Cinema / Modernity / Government
- Documentary Cinema
- The French New Wave
- The Latin American Cinematic Tradition
- Spanish Cinema
7. Language course (subject to availability)
One Language Acquisition course taught at SOAS (list available from the Faculty of Languages and Cultures)
8. Dissertation in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural
(supervisor to be allocated according to the dissertation topic)
