University of London, Royal Holloway

This course examines aspects of the historical and contemporary development of film form. In the first half of the term, it looks at crosscutting and continuity editing in films by D.W. Griffith, Alfred Hitchcock, and Christopher Nolan. In the second half it studies discontinuity and montage in various films, including work by Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Jean-Luc Godard, and Isiah Medina. Students are also introduced to basic editing software and the final assessment is in the form of a video essay.  

This course gives an overview of the contributions from applied cognitive, social, forensic psychology, and criminal psychology to the understanding of witness and criminal behavior. It examines the evidence from child witnesses and impact of crime on victims of sexual offences and provides an understanding of the implications of forensic psychology in the justice system. Students are expected to demonstrate awareness of current theories and research related to witness and criminal behavior. Students discuss issues related to the current state of knowledge on criminal behavior current incidents, research, and media influences.

This course analyzes discourses of multiculturalism and interculturalism, and their significance to theatre. It explores ethnicity, and its theatrical representation through casting, as an area of fierce debate: performances that investigate ethnicity frequently find themselves at the center of controversial debates, even street protests; at the level of casting decisions. Drawing upon literature from the social sciences, post-colonialism, and gender studies, the course explores the power relationships that shape the production and reception of ethnicities through casting, and examine a selection of case studies where issues around representation in casting have exploded into the views. 

Drawing on influences from theater and the visual arts, Live Art does not conform to any single form of making but is rather wildly interdisciplinary, experimental and provocative. Concerned with experience and the potential of live encounter for public intervention, radical politics and formal innovation, this course introduces the Idea of Live Art and its artistic, social and political ambitions. Exploring examples of experimental practice by key practitioners –  indicatively Marina Abramović, Franko B, Chris Burden, Song Dong, Tehching Hsieh, Yves Klein, Santiago Sierra, Valie Export and others – this course also engages with contemporary events happening in London simultaneously with seminars. Students explore institutions, including the Live Art Development Agency (LADA) and the Institute for Contemporary Arts (London), which have framed, supported and made space for Live Art, and make the most of opportunities offered by the Department’s three-year partnership with Tate Modern. Students explore key ideas for theater and performance to do with liveness, embodiment, spectatorship, duration, ephemerality and documentation, and investigate how live art has embraced, challenged, and extended debates regarding the representation of ideas and identities, as well as what might count as performance.