LITERATURE AND CINEMA IN ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES

Competencies and objectives

Course context for academic year 2022-23
Course content (verified by ANECA in official undergraduate and Master’s degrees)
Learning outcomes (Training objectives)
Specific objectives stated by the academic staff for academic year 2022-23

Course context for academic year 2022-23

The methodology of analysis of an audiovisual text finds its epistemology in literary criticism, which justifies a joint research on both disciplines, with a priority here on the specificity of film. The aim of this subject is to provide the student with the necessary resources to interpret the semiotics of film narrative, analysing the evolution from the silent period to the XXIst century in the Anglo-American context.

Course content (verified by ANECA in official undergraduate and Master’s degrees)

DEGREE IN CATALAN STUDIES

General Competences (CG)

CG1 : Capacity to master the key theories, perspectives and conceptualisations for constructing the theoretical framework of linguistic and literary disciplines applied to Catalan language and literature as an expert on the subject and in different professional profiles.
CG2 : Capacity to understand the role of language in the construction of human beings as active members of a linguistic and cultural community and relate this to the function of individuals in society.
CG3 : Capacity to develop reading, analysis and synthesis techniques.
CG4 : Capacity to manage and use the resources provided by the information and communications technologies and apply those to the language and literature industries.
CG5 : Ability to understand the main stages, movements, writers and works of the literature of the second language.

General Competences acquired at University of Alicante (CGUA)

CGUA2 : Ability to use basic ICT tools at user level.
CGUA3 : Ability to communicate effectively and have linguistic understanding of one of the two official languages of the Region of Valencia (Spanish or Catalan) in their discipline.

Specific Competences (CE)

CE1 : Capacity to communicate in the Catalan language in communicative situations (oral and written), allowing fluid communication in the professional and academic areas in which the student will be working in the future, taking into account his/her knowledge of the historical, social, cultural and artistic reality of his/her context.
CE11 : Be able to develop reading, analysis and synthesis techniques, formulate working hypotheses, demonstrate them with arguments and reach conclusions, as well as recognise and ensure the textual coherence (structure of the text, organisation of ideas, progression of information, use of keywords), to explain and argue any subject related to Catalan language and literature, thus achieving the role of expert, transmitter and adviser regarding the knowledge acquired.
CE2 : Capacity to understand morphological, syntactic, phonetic and lexico-semantic characteristics to use, transmit and apply knowledge to the analysis, comprehension and production of Catalan in oral and written forms.
CE9 : Capacity to identify the currents of literary criticism, their categories, concepts and nomenclature as a key factor in the development of the capacity to criticise and analyse text (literary, cinematographic, advertising), as regards the creative manifestation and reflection of the sociocultural context.

DEGREE IN SPANISH: LANGUAGE AND LITERATURES

Generic Degree Course Competences

CG2 : Capacity to understand the role of language in the construction of human beings as active members of linguistic and cultural communities and relate it to the function of individuals in society.
CG3 : Be able to develop reading, analysis and synthesis techniques.

Generic UA Competences

CUA1 : Understand and express oneself in one's discipline in a language other than the two official languages of the Region of Valencia.
CUA2 : Be able to use basic ICT tools at user level.

Specific Competences (CE):>>Conceptual

CC15 : Understand the main stages, movements, writers and works of literature in the second language.
CC16 : Acquire level B1 of the CEFR in a second language.
CC5 : Capacity to communicate in the language of the speciality (Spanish) and in a second language in oral and written situations to enable fluid communication in the future professional and/or academic contexts the student will be involved with in the future.

Specific Competences (CE):>>Procedural

CP19 : Capacity to identify currents of literary criticism, their categories, concepts and anomenclature, as a basic tool for developing the ability to analyse and criticise text (literary, cinematographic, advertising, etc.), as regards the creative manifestation and reflection of the sociocultural context.
CP20 : Capacity to use the pertinent materials and resources: bibliographic repertories, dictionaries, works of reference, critical editions, translations and ICTs as an independent learner able to control one's own learning process and make the corresponding independent progress.

Specific Competences (CE):>>Attitude

CA22 : Be able to value and take advantage of multilingualism and multiculturalism as a social agent participating in the construction of a plural and tolerant society on the basis of the multicultural configuration of the Spanish-speaking world.
CA23 : Be able to show a critical and self-critical attitude during the learning process.
CA24 : Capacity to demonstrate social commitment to the equality of men and women, the plural and diverse nature of modern society, peace and democracy.

Learning outcomes (Training objectives)

No data

Specific objectives stated by the academic staff for academic year 2022-23

- In order to analyse the key concepts of film syntax, we will work on two milestones of the History of film, The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) and Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941).

- The literary and film genres to be dealt with this academic year will be melodrama and the Western, specifying their distinctive features in both fields and their socio-cultural relevance. To study the latter genre we shall include the novel The Ox-Bow Incident (Walter Van Tilburg Clark, 1940).

- In order to analyse the concept of Auteur, we shall use the cinematic work of Alfred Hichcock in his American period. We will include, as well, the novel Strangers on a Train (Patricia Highsmith, 1950) to make an in-depth review of the main features of novel to film adaptation.

- For the units specifically focused on film adaptations of literary sources we shall analyse how the novella The Turn of the Screw (Henry James, 1898) was transferred to the screen as The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961); how director Marcus Thompson adapted Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's theatre play The Changeling (1622) to film as Middleton's Changeling (1998), and the cinematic adaptation of the novel Atonement (Ian McEwan, 2001) by Joe Wright (2007).