Fall 2024 - HUM 321W OL01
The Humanities and Critical Thinking (4)
Class Number: 4430
Delivery Method: Online
Overview
Description
CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:
Study of the counter-traditions in human civilization and thought, including impulses and movements that critique and resist dominant value systems. Focuses on writers, artists and thinkers that break with their traditions creating new values, ideas, and forms of experience and expression. May be repeated for credit when a different topic is taught. Writing/Breadth-Humanities.
COURSE DETAILS:
Humanities and Critical Thinking: Shooting the Mafia
This seminar makes an offer you can’t refuse: studying the Sicilian Mafia through Italian cinema.
Since the end of World War II, Italian filmmakers have taken a sustained interest in the Sicilian Mafia (a.k.a. Cosa Nostra), Italy’s most notorious crime syndicate, and represented it in cinematically diverse ways. The stories that they put on screen draw upon and experiment with a variety of forms, including the Italian “western,” political/investigative cinema, black comedy, melodrama, the police procedural, the biopic, and the social-justice film. Their dynamic approaches to exploring the problem of organized crime in contemporary Italy differ – often significantly – from Hollywood mafia films with which you may be more familiar.
To sharpen our skills of critical thinking, we will approach our subject in two complementary ways. First, we will read and contextualize our films as audio-visual histories, examining how the Mafia emerged in Sicily and why it flourished; why it has remained an endemic scourge in Italian society for so long; and the extent to which anti-mafia campaigns have succeeded in curbing its influence over time. Second, we will analyze our films as humanistic texts, interpreting their authors’ narrative and aesthetic strategies and, in turn, filmmakers’ contribution to historical knowledge, cultural debate, and civic action through their artistic works.
This course will be remote. All class meetings will be live on Zoom. You will watch one film out of class each week. Films will be streamed on Canvas and subtitled in English. To situate films in their social and political contexts, supplemental readings will be assigned each week.
No background in Italian or film studies is necessary.
Grading
- Participation 30%
- Portfolio 35%
- Final paper/project 35%
NOTES:
This course fulfills the Global Humanities requirements for the
Materials
REQUIRED READING:
- John Dickie, Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia
This text will not be sold via the SFU Bookstore but is widely available online. The e-book can be purchased on amazon.ca and Google Play for $1. A new paperback costs about $25.
REQUIRED READING NOTES:
Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.
Registrar Notes:
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS
SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating. Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.
Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the university community. Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the university. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html
RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION
Students with a faith background who may need accommodations during the term are encouraged to assess their needs as soon as possible and review the Multifaith religious accommodations website. The page outlines ways they begin working toward an accommodation and ensure solutions can be reached in a timely fashion.