RMeS RMa Tutorials 2014-15 – University of Amsterdam
Dates: see below
Venue: University of Amsterdam
Open to: First and second year research master students in Media Studies and related fields, registered with RMeS
Offered by: the Research School for Media Studies (RMeS), as part of the RMa curriculum
Credits: 6 ECTS
Registration: register before: 20 September 2014 (I) / 1 February, 2015 (II). Amount of participants is limited.
Register here
When registering for a tutorial, please fill in at remarks which tutorial. Note: you can only attend ONE tutorial.
Revisiting Star Studies
Dr. Jaap Kooijman, J.W.Kooijman@uva.nl | 6 EC | University of Amsterdam
Ever since the publication of Stars (1979) and Heavenly Bodies (1986) by Richard Dyer, star studies has become an important part of Film Studies and Media Studies. As Dyer points out in Heavenly Bodies, “stars matter because they act out aspects of life that matter to us; and performers get to be stars when what they act out matters to enough people.” Methodologically based on textual analysis, star studies is based on the notion that to fully understand a film (or other media text), the “star text” of the performer, consisting of both on- and off-screen performances, has to be included within the analysis. Recently, star studies has been challenged by celebrity studies, which places a stronger emphasis on the spectacle of celebrities themselves and the cultural industry in which they operate. In this tutorial, we return to the original premise of star studies through the contemporary perspective of celebrity studies. Students are expected to participate in a collective project (f.e. a special issue of an academic journal) to which they contribute an individual case study of one specific star.
SECOND SEMESTER
Media and Governmentality
Dr. Markus Stauff, M.Stauff@uva.nl | 6 EC | University of Amsterdam
Governmentality is an approach that analyzes politics – and more generally issues of power and agency – through an analysis of environments that are created to order and to steer the behavior of things and people. In recent year this approach has fruitfully been appropriated for media studies where it contributes to at least three ongoing discussions: How to analyse power and agency in an age of continuously changing and ever more diversified media gadgets and applications? How to conceive of the relationship between media and political institutions (esp. the state)? What is the role of the ongoing phantasies (promises and warnings) of the future development of media? This tutorial will start with discussing key texts of the governmentality approach (esp. Michel Foucault) and aims to gain an overview on the different media studies approaches working with the concept (e.g. Laurie Ouellette, Wendy Chun, Tony Bennett). Additionally, the tutorial will offer a space for all participants to experiment with applying the approach for analyzing recent developments.
SECOND SEMESTER
Theories With Heart
Prof.dr. Mark Deuze, M.J.P.Deuze@uva.nl | 6 EC | University of Amsterdam
In this tutorial we aim to bring back emotions to the analysis of media – their materiality as artifacts that we stand in an ecological relation to, our intimate relations with media (and through media), and how we make sense of our selves and others in terms of often passionate engagement and embodied encounters in such media. The project is organized around what René Descartes in 1649 described as the six primary ‘passions of the soul’: wonder, love, hate, desire, joy, and sadness. Although Descartes sought to understand such passions with the aim to regulate and control them we endeavor to show how studies of such passions in conjunction with what we know about how people relate to (their) media help us to overcome the human-machine divide.
FIRST SEMESTER
