Topics in Documentary Studies: Histories of Violence

From one perspective, theory is a discourse of explanation that is applied, concurrently or retroactively, to the images of culture presented in documentary films: films present raw material of culture to be theorized aesthetically, sociologically, psychologically, historically, politically, and so on. But at the same time, documentary filmmaking can be conceived as an intellectual discourse, what its founders called “a method of philosophic reasoning” (Paul Rotha), one meant to reflect or challenge certain cultural and social ideas. The winter 2013 version of Topics in Documentary Studies considers the history of documentary film and media, from the late 19th century to the present, as a discourse on violence of all kinds – physical, psychological, social, political, natural; individual, collective, institutional, international – and on the problems of reason and action that violence produces or signifies. The course will place nonfiction film and media together with theories of violence to consider the way that media of representation and history can address questions of truth, justice, ethics, guilt, and agency, and can provoke sentiment, sentience, shock, belief, and desire. Readings will be drawn from a wide range of social, cultural, and documentary theorists, likely to include: Theodor Adorno; Hannah Arendt; Ariella Azoulay; James Baldwin; Walter Benjamin; Judith Butler; Rey Chow; Gilles Deleuze; Don DeLillo, Sigmund Freud; Naomi Klein; Elaine Scarry; Slavoj Zizek. Screenings likely to include works by, among others: Bruce Conner; Susana de Sousa Dias de Macedo; Kirby Dick and Carol Halstead; George Franju; Alejandro González Iñárritu; Avi Mograbi; Errol Morris; Eyal Sivan; Jean-Marie Teno; Frederick Wiseman; Artur Zmijewski. Course requirements will include regular seminar attendance and participation, regular attendance at screenings, and substantial critical writing.