The Cultural History of Japanese Cinema, 7.5 ECTS
First levelFacts
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The course, given in collaboration between Section for Cinema Studies at the Department of Media Studies and The Department of Asian, Middle East and Turkish Studies, provides an overview of the Japanese film’s cultural history. Cultural theoretical, technological, intermediary and political perspectives on “modernity” and “tradition” within Japanese films are related to the role of concepts in other countries’ film history. The course also takes into account the ways in which “national film” has been a key historical theoretic concept in understanding the style and theme of films produced in both Japan and the western world.
Area of interests: Arts and Humanities
How are different cultures created and how do they affect us? Arts and Humanities is an area of interest that includes a wide variety of subjects such as Archaeology, Philosophy, History, Religion, Ethnology, Literature, and Theatre and Performance Studies. In one way or another these subjects are an expression of how culture affects human beings and society. As a student you will improve your analytical skills and learn to identify different lines of development, often in an interdisciplinary context. Studies within Arts and Humanities give you broad general competence that is very useful in the job market, where autonomy, analytical and communication skills are in great demand.
Subject
Cinema Studies
Cinema Studies is the study of moving images and screen cultures centered around film, film experience, and phenomena surrounding films. Historically, it ranges from image cultures before film, to the screens and digital platforms of today. The field is broad and can be found at institutions around the world under the designations of Film Studies, Television Studies, Media Studies, Visual Arts, Cultural Studies, Film and Media History, and Moving Image Studies.
The objects of study can be specific films, production cultures, genre, auteur, intermedial and trans-medial relations, archives, circulation and distribution, reception (audience, critique), film culture, media industries, institutional frameworks (legal, political, economic), technological arrangements or streaming platforms.
Approaches and perspectives applied can be genre or narrative analysis, aesthetics, auteur criticism, reception studies, critique of filmic representations, post-colonial or gender perspectives, celebrity culture, or perspectives from political economy and cultural studies.
The field is informed by Literature, History and Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Linguistics, Psychology, Sociology, and Economics. Cinema Studies at Stockholm University is focused on historical perspectives and key medial moments of transformation, Ingmar Bergman, as well as contemporary film and mediascapes.