Course Syllabus - University of Western Ontario

Instructor: Dr. Tobias Nagl
Office: UC 73
Email: tnagl@uwo.ca
Office: UC 73
Office Hours: Wednesday 2:30‐4:30pm
Screenings: Thursday 4:30‐7:30pm (UC 12)
Seminar: Monday: 2:30‐4:30pm (UC 12)
UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO
DEPARTMENT OF FILM
Graduate Program
FILM 9314A & THEOCRIT 9607A
Brecht in World Cinema
Required Texts:
Books (available at the UWO Bookstore):
‐John Willett (ed.), Brecht On Theatre
‐Martin Walsh, Brechtian Aspect of Radical Cinema (Photocopy)
‐Roswitha Mueller, Bertolt Brecht and the Theory of Media (Photocopy)
‐Fredric Jameson (ed.), Aesthetics and Politics
‐Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproduction and other Writings on
Media
Coursepack:
‐Available on OWL (https://owl.uwo.ca)
Recommended Readings
‐Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
‐Bertolt Brecht, Collected Plays Vol. 2
I. Assignments and Evaluation:
Participation 10%
One seminar presentation
(submission of abstract, working bibliography and research notes) 30%
One research essay of 4000‐6000 words. Date Due: December 17 60%
Course Description:
This course investigates the historical and theoretical links between the Marxist aesthetics of playwright
Bertolt Brecht (1898‐1956), the development of “political modernism” as a once influential paradigm in
Film Studies and different modes of radical filmmaking in World cinema. In this course, we will study key
writings by Brecht on theater and the cinema (“epic” theater, the “v”‐effect, realism/formalism, etc.) in
the context of 1920s and 1930s Marxist debates on the “revolutionary” potential of film and “new”
media (Benjamin, Lukacs, Bloch, Eisenstein) and trace Brecht’s involvement in and influence on the
cinema in his own era. At the same time, we will look at the manifold usages non‐Western, feminist and

left‐wing European filmmakers made of Brecht’s aesthetic strategies during the worldwide social
upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s in their attempts to politicize film form and spectatorship and develop
popular modes of film practice that challenge both the historical avant‐gardes and commercial cinema.
Finally, we will critically analyze the rise and shortcomings of theoretical “Brechtianism” in Film Studies
(as an eclectic amalgam of Althusser’s theories of ideology, Lacan’s re‐reading of psychoanalysis, and
Barthes’ semiotics) and explore alternatives to theorize the political potential of the moving image after
the “end” of cinema. This course is not for the faint‐hearted: some of the films screened in this class can
be quite challenging.
II. Information for Students
Absences and Late Assignments
If you are absent from seminar or screening or an assignment is late due to illness or other legitimate
reasons please contact me as soon as possible and forward supporting documentation to your Faculty. If
you are in doubt as to the ‘legitimacy’ of your situation regarding lateness or absence please contact me
as soon as possible.
For more information please go to Student Services https://studentservices.uwo.ca/secure/index.cfm
Participation
∙ Participation marks will be awarded for active engagement in seminar discussions, critical
responses to required readings and constructive and insightful comments made on the peer
assessment proformas.
∙ Additionally seminar members will be assigned to act as theory discussants on a weekly basis.
This will require the parsing of a required theory text that conveys the substantive elements of
the assigned writer’s argument and offers illustrations of said argument with reference to the
film(s) viewed in a given week, and, if pertinent examples from previous weeks. This 10 minute
presentation should provoke further discussion.
Seminar Presentation
A 500‐word abstract of your presentation and a working bibliography are due one week before the
seminar you select or earlier.
Please make an appointment to discuss the abstract and bibliography with the instructor a week before
the seminar.
A copy of your research notes is to be submitted to the instructor on the day of your seminar.
Please make copies of the abstract available for your colleagues at least 24 hours before your
presentation. If you use power point for your presentation please submit a copy of the file to the
instructor) so that it can be uploaded for your colleagues to consult on Web CT.
Oral presentations are to be 30 minutes, followed by a discussion moderated by the presenters.

Students should select an aspect of a given text that intrigues them, and will sustain further
investigation. It is expected that students will integrate some of the theoretical readings of the week
and/or previous weeks into their presentations.
You might wish to raise questions at the end of your presentation to further class discussion.
Speak clearly, and slowly; the pace of an oral delivery, and the amount of eye contact a speaker has with
an audience often determine the effectiveness of the presentation.
Peer Assessment of Seminar Presentations
All students will participate in the assessment of seminar presentations by making constructive
comments on the peer assessment proformas. Completed proformas are to be returned to the
instructor on the day following the seminar. I will remove the names of assessors from the proformas,
and share class comments with the seminarists.
Plagiarism is a serious offense and is prosecuted to the fullest extent that university regulations permit.
Screenings
Attendance is compulsory. For individual study, videos may be viewed in UC 1.
Please note the schedule below is provisional. If discussion is productive we may carry over a topic from
one week to another.
III. Grading Criteria for Written Assignments
A+ (90+) Work of publishable standard, albeit with some revisions possible. Equivalent to advanced
Ph.D. level work.
A (88‐89) Excellent: displaying extensive originality.
A‐ (85‐87) Strong performance at MA level, fully equal to that of an average Ph.D. student. Must be
well‐written and show some originality.
B+ (80‐84)Good MA‐level work, indicating the student’s potential (with some reservations) to work
successfully at the Ph.D. level.
B (78‐79) Competent MA work, but does not suggest potential to proceed to Ph.D. level
B‐ Any mark below 78 indicates performance below the level required of a graduate student.