Anth 365 Anthropology of Development in Post-Mao China
Film Commentaries
Due: 4 total (though do more for extra credit!) due Fridays, 5pm, the week the film is screened for the class. NOTE: you will sign up to schedule your four film commentaries over the semester.
Length and Format: 1-2 pages, double spaced. Either 1) a Word doc or 2) a pdf. They can include inserted images and hyper-links.
They should be informal commentaries on the film screened for that week of the course, with specific reference to ideas and debates in the week's readings. All references to the readings should be cited with in-text, paranthetical citation (ie., Lopez 1998: 10). No reference list is needed unless you cite sources outside the syllabus, but all images or video used should have a way for viewers to see their source, title or creator, and if possible, creation date (ie., in a caption, a rollover box, or in-text reference).
To refer to moments in the film, please use timestamps (eg., 53:10), found at the bottom of the viewing window. You may also want to insert stills (captured via screenshots) from the film into your commentary. If you do, please make sure caption the images with a brief description of the scene, and include the timestamp in the caption.
Evaluation: Even though the commentaries are informal, this is still a writing assignment, only here you get to experiment with other genres of writing in a less formal setting (no need for formal structure, thesis statement, conclusion, etc). The tone can be relaxed, but avoid a kind of 'blogspeak' sarcastic tone! I will evaluate based on (in order of priority):
1) Extent to which you refer to the week's readings and demonstrate clear understanding of basic terms presented in the course;
2) The creativity and originality of your ideas;
3) The clarity of your organization and writing;
In this course, we take a multimedia approach to the anthropology of "development" in China, treating images and video as seriously as we do written texts. These informal commentaries are your chance to try your hand at a different kind of writing--which is no less academically rigorous.
This is not a "film review," but the idea is to critically comment on course films with reference to ideas and theories from the relevant week's readings. We screen a total of 11 films this semester; you must comment on at least 4 of them. But feel free to do more for extra credit. The film commentaries can thus work as a kind of ongoing blog about the course material. For the films you sign up for, you will upload them to Moodle on Fridays after we screen the film (Word doc or pdf emailed to me).