FIL-40008 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2022/23

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

FIL-30008: Crime in Neoconservative America

Description for 2022/23

Neoconservatism, a reaction within American culture and politics against the liberalism of the 1960s and faith in the ability of the state to address the socio-economic causes of crime, seeks to position the criminal as ultimately responsible for their actions. The consequences of this ideological hegemony has been a rejection of rehabilitative schemes and an increasingly punitive justice system, with policies such as three strike laws for offences that are often nonviolent, mass incarceration, the public labelling and shaming of offenders, and the use of the death penalty as a deterrent. This module will explore US filmic and televisual representations of crime in relation to neoconservative ideology. Students will be expected to develop sophisticated responses to the complexities of texts that sometimes both embody and critique the neoconservative framing of
crime and criminals. As such, this module will combine nuanced close reading of texts with historical and political contextualization in order to consider the ways in which issues of gender, race, sexuality, and class are addressed in films and television shows from the 1970s to the present.
Indicative Course Structure:
Week 1 Antecedents: Don Siegel, 'Dirty Harry' (1971)
Week 2 What is Neoconservativism?
Week 3 Criminal Monstrosity
Week 4 The Serial Killer: John McNaughton, 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer' (1986)
Week 5 Paedophilia: Nicole Kassell, 'The Woodsman' (2004)
Week 6 School Shootings: Lynne Ramsay, 'We Need to Talk about Kevin' (2011)
Week 7 Independent Study
Week 8 Vigilantism: David Slade, 'Hard Candy' (2005)
Week 9 Prostitution: Patty Jenkins, 'Monster' (2003)
Week 10 Gang Violence: Tony Kaye, 'American History X' (1998)
Week 11 Drugs: David Simon, 'The Wire', Season One (2002-8)
Week 12 Terrorism: Kathryn Bigelow, 'Zero Dark Thirty' (2012)

To enable students to engage critically with American neoconservatism as the dominant paradigm for the framing of crime in the United States from the 1980s to the present, while paying close attention to shifts in trends and resistance.
To develop students' film/television-analytical skills and film/television-theory knowledge to an advanced level.
To enable students to relate filmic and televisual formal features to issues of historical knowledge, producing work informed by the latest research.

Intended Learning Outcomes

apply advanced skills in close textual reading of film and/or television (mise-en-scene analysis): 1,2
analyse formal features of films and/or television shows to an advanced level, informed by research at the forefront of the discipline: 1,2
situate and critically evaluate films and/or television shows in relation to political and historical context, drawing on original research: 1,2
analyse how the representation of crimes and criminals in films and/or television shows address wider debates about how they are conceptualised: 1,2
demonstrate advanced skills in referencing, bibliography, and researching a field within film and television studies: 1,2
draw on a critical understanding of different research fields - history, sociology, criminology - to enhance filmic and/or televisual analysis: 1,2

Study hours

Seminars 28 hours (2 x 10, 8 x 1)
Detailed support for assessments (2 hours)
Assessment preparation 100 hours
Seminar preparation and research 170 hours

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment