Question Description

1. Annotated Bibliography

a. Choose an essay topic. Your bibliography must reflect the topic of your essay.

b.The number of sources you will need will depend upon your topic, but I recommend that you have no fewer than three and no more than six.

c. Assemble and format your bibliography according to Joseph Gibaldi’s Modern Language Association Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. It is essential to the assignment that you consistently use this bibliographic style.

d. Annotate your bibliography. An annotation is a brief description of the text which summarizes the main issues and indicates the text’s importance to your essay. Each bibliographical entry plus its annotation should be a substantial paragraph. Your entries should be arranged in a recognizable and relevant order, i.e. hierarchically according to importance, chronologically/historically etc. You must provide me with a brief preface to your bibliography (of one paragraph) indicating your essay’s prospective thesis, a justification for the ordering your bibliography and a rationale for including the particular secondary sources you have chosen.

2. Major Essay—approximately 4000 words (15 double spaced pages, 12 pt. font)

This is a research essay that builds upon your Annotated Bibliography, and therefore I will expect your tightly structured and argumentative essay to proceed via the support, discussion and interrogation of your research.

You must narrow topic down in order to provide your essay with a specific and argumentative thesis that can be convincingly pursued in the space available to you.

Topics

1. Film theorists have attributed different political and social functions to cinema. Does cinema inevitably confirm ideology, or can it contest ideology? How and why? Discuss in relation to at least two theorists and use filmic examples.

2. With reference to a specific film, compare and contrast Christian Metz’s and Laura Mulvey’s accounts of voyeurism, fetishism and identification. Which is more useful? How and why?

3. How does the Lacanian mirror stage theorize film spectatorship? Evaluate the success and application of Lacanian psychoanalysis to the writing of two film theorists with respect to cinema.

 
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