English 348W Literature and Culture:
Pulp Fictions, Alien Technologies, and Strange
Families
| Professor Landon |
Winter, 1998 |
| Lecture Hall IV |
M-Th 1:00-4:15 PM |
This winter we will take a look at the portraits of contemporary
America drawn by a group of independent filmmakers whose films transform the
conventions of mainstream Hollywood films into sharp critiques of the celebrations
of patriotism, technological progress, and family values in the bolckbuster
hits of the last decade. To describe the aim of the course in generic terms,
we will compare the social and political implications of the blockbuster action
films with those which have drawn on the stylistic and thematic conventions
of the film noir.
