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| Semester | Frühjahrsemester 2017 |
| Angebotsmuster | einmalig |
| Dozierende | John Vivian Bickford-Smith (johnvivian.bickford-smith@unibas.ch, BeurteilerIn) |
| Inhalt | This course uses film as a means of examining the South African past. It does so by looking at film within an exploration of historiographical debates about that past: in other words we will be viewing films while also reading academic literature about South Africa. There will be a particular focus on the apartheid period, but also some exploration of cinematic depictions of post-apartheid South Africa. We will examine films that attempt to give a sense of South Africa at the time they were made – like 1950s South Africa in Civilisation on Trial in South Africa (1950), Cry the Beloved Country (1951), and Come Back Africa (1959); or Tsotsi (2005) - as well as ‘history’ films like Cry Freedom (1986: about Steve Biko, Black Consciousness and 1970s South Africa). So the course will be looking at the possibilities, and problems, of using film to examine the nature of politics and everyday life in South Africa, whether in the 1950s (the 1950s films cited above), 1970s (Cry Freedom) or the early twenty-first century (Tsotsi: about poverty and crime in Johannesburg). The premise behind this course is that film is an important and exciting form of evidence for those interested in modern South African history - as it can be for the history of any country. Film, whether as a form of evidence or of attempted historical reconstruction, is worthy of serious academic analysis because of its disproportionate influence over how most come to understand contemporary or past societies in our modern visual world. The power of film is that it can appear to ‘show’ us the past in an unmediated fashion, using its multi-media language to give us a sense of actually experiencing it, whether through documentary footage, or indeed (in feature film) through dramatic reconstruction. In the process films seem to provide direct evidence about the people, events or places they depict, including modern South Africa; as well as indirect evidence of the values and attitudes of the film makers, societies and times that produced them. Films can also of course be intended to influence, maintain or alter such attitudes; and apart from providing evidence, films can and do make arguments about the past, like written history. There has been considerable debate in recent decades about how films do this, in both similar and different fashion to written history, and we will be applying this debate to our particular examination of film and the South African past. |
| Literatur | On Film and History: General Reading aboutt Film as attempted History: Rosenstone, R.A. Revisioning History, (Princeton, 1995) Rosenstone, R.A. Visions of the Past, (Cambridge MA, 1995) Rosenstone, R.A. Film on History/History on Film, (Pearson, 2006). Toplin, R. Reel History: In Defense of Hollywood History, (Lawrence, 2002) On Film as Evidence: General Reading for Film as Evidence: Aldgate, A. Cinema and History: British Newsreels and the Spanish Civil War, (London, 1979) Barber, S. Using Film as a Source, (Manchester, 2015) J.Richards. J. Visions of Yesterday (London, 1973) Smith, P. The Historian and Film (Cambridge, 1976) Sorlin, P. The Film in History (Totowa NJ, 1980) On Apartheid South Africa in Film and Twentieth Century South African History: Beinart, W. Twentieth Century South Africa, (Oxford, 2001) Bickford-Smith, V., and R. Mendelsohn, R., (eds.), Black and White in Colour: African History on Screen, (Athens OH, 2007) Davis, P. (ed.). Come Back Africa (Johannesburg. 2004) Davis, P. In Darkest Hollywood: Exploring the Jungles of Cinema’s Apartheid, (Johannesburg, 1996) Nixon, R. Homelands, Harlem and Hollywood. (London, 1994) [Chapter ‘Cry White Season’] Lodge, T. Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, (Johannesburg, 1983) Maingard, J. South African National Cinema, (London, 2007) Worden, N. (2000), The Making of Modern South Africa, (Oxford, 2000) |
| Teilnahmebedingungen | Für Master- und fortgeschrittene Bachelorstudierende der Geschichte. Bachelorstudierende weisen den Abschluss der Grundstufe des BSF Geschichte nach (mindestens 3 Proseminare und 3 Proseminararbeiten). |
| Unterrichtssprache | Englisch |
| Einsatz digitaler Medien | kein spezifischer Einsatz |
| Intervall | Wochentag | Zeit | Raum |
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Keine Einzeltermine verfügbar, bitte informieren Sie sich direkt bei den Dozierenden.
| Module |
Aufbaumodul Neuere und Neueste Geschichte (Bachelor Studienfach: Geschichte (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2013)) Modul Areas: aussereuropäisch (Master Studiengang: Europäische Geschichte) Modul Aufbau Neuere / Neueste Geschichte (Bachelor Studienfach: Geschichte) Modul Epochen der europäischen Geschichte: Neuere / Neueste Geschichte (Master Studiengang: Europäische Geschichte) Modul Ereignisse, Prozesse, Zusammenhänge (Master Studienfach: Geschichte (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2013)) Modul Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul Fields: Media and Imagination (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul History (Master Studiengang: African Studies (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2013)) Modul Kommunikation und Vermittlung historischer Erkenntnisse (Master Studienfach: Geschichte (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2013)) Modul Methoden - Reflexion - Theorien: Bilder - Medien - Repräsentationen (Master Studiengang: Europäische Geschichte) Modul Methoden und Diskurse historischer Forschung (Master Studienfach: Geschichte (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2013)) Modul Neuere / Neueste Geschichte (Master Studienfach: Geschichte) Modul Neuere und Neueste Geschichte (Master Studienfach: Geschichte (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2013)) Modul Profil: Geschichte Afrikas (Master Studiengang: Europäische Geschichte) Modul Profil: Geschlechtergeschichte (Master Studiengang: Europäische Geschichte) Modul Profil: Moderne (Master Studiengang: Europäische Geschichte) |
| Leistungsüberprüfung | Lehrveranst.-begleitend |
| Hinweise zur Leistungsüberprüfung | Aktive Teilnahme. |
| An-/Abmeldung zur Leistungsüberprüfung | Anmelden: Belegen; Abmelden: nicht erforderlich |
| Wiederholungsprüfung | keine Wiederholungsprüfung |
| Skala | Pass / Fail |
| Wiederholtes Belegen | nicht wiederholbar |
| Zuständige Fakultät | Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Anbietende Organisationseinheit | Departement Geschichte |