Journalism and Screen Studies (JASS)

JASS 536     Memoir and Travel Writing     3 Credit Hours

A course in narrative nonfiction that focuses on memoir and travel writing. Reading involves several books as well as classic essay-length examples. Assignments include both short and analytical papers and the writing and revising of three original articles, based on research, interviews, memory, and observation, and drawing on literary techniques. In addition to these assignments, graduate students must prepare a substantial critical analysis focusing on a particular writer or theme, and present their work to the class as well as in writing. (YR).

Prerequisite(s): COMP 106 or COMP 220 or COMP 270 or Composition Placement Score with a score of 40 or Composition Placement Score with a score of 107 or COMP 280

Restriction(s):
Can enroll if Level is Rackham or Graduate

JASS 577     Ethnographic Film     3 Credit Hours

This course will analyze ethnographic films as a medium for the construction of meaning in and across cultures. It will teach students to understand how putatively "real" content of documentary film creates a mixture of fantasy, news and "science". Covering texts as varied as National Geographic photographic layouts, traditional ethnographic films made by anthropologists, and auto-ethnographies of cultural groups such as Native Americans and the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, the course will aim to deconstruct such oppositions as indigene vs. alien, us vs. them, and self vs. other. (AY)

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 248 or HUM 248 or JASS 248 or ANTH 101

Restriction(s):
Can enroll if Level is Rackham or Graduate