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2015/16 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

SPPO3040 Children in Lusophone Cinema: Dictatorship, Marginality and National Identity

20 creditsClass Size: 40

Module manager: Rachel Randall

Taught: Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2015/16

Pre-requisite qualifications

Students should have successfully completed SPPO2090 or SPPO2091, or have an equivalent level of Portuguese.

Pre-requisites

SPPO2090	Portuguese Language Skills
SPPO2091	Portuguese Language Skills

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Module summary

This module examines some of the most popular Lusophone cinema produced in recent years, such as Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, 1998) and O ano em que os meus pais saíram de férias (Cao Hamburger, 2006), as well as 'classics' including Aniki-bóbó (Manoel de Oliveira, 1942) and Pixote: a lei do mais fraco (Héctor Babenco, 1981). It raises questions including: what are the aesthetic and ethical implications of depicting children on film? What accounts for these films' success both in their countries of production and amongst global audiences? Indeed, what can child characters tell us that adults can't? The geographical regions covered in the module are diverse, however, all the texts analysed are united by their focuses on: (i) child characters' significance for the representation of national identities, (ii) periods of historical repression or dictatorship throughout the mid to late 20th century; and (iii) marginality in urban, media-dominated, market-driven societies since the 1980s.

Objectives

- To compare and contrast depictions of children and adolescents from different Lusophone nations since the mid-twentieth century.
- To interrogate stereotypical representations of youth, for example of middle-class children as 'innocent' or apolitical, and of adolescents as 'delinquents' or 'promiscuous'.
- To take into account the historical and socio-political contexts of cultural productions, particularly in the case of those that refer explicitly to dictatorship, civil violence and periods of colonial rule.
- To provide each student pursuing the course with the opportunity and encouragement to improve their writing skills in both English and Portuguese, as well as to develop their confidence in conducting research and giving an oral presentation.

Learning outcomes
On completion of this module, students will be able to:
1. Demonstrate confidence in applying pertinent historical and socio-political information to their analyses of texts.
2. Compare and contrast cultural productions from different Lusophone countries.
3. Recognise references to psychoanalytic theory that recur in films about childhood.
4. Critically analyse simplistic 'mass media' portrayals of children and teens.
5. Demonstrate a broad knowledge of periods of dictatorship, colonial rule or civil war in Angola, Brazil and Portugal.
6. Organise, prepare and deliver a fifteen-minute oral presentation as part of a pair and respond to questions on it.
7. Write a critique of a cultural production in Portuguese.
8. Produce a sophisticated and well-organised comparative essay in English, using knowledge acquired in class and through independent reading.

Skills outcomes
Students will have developed transferable skills, such as confidence in giving an oral presentation, as well as in co-ordinating and managing work as part of a team. They will also have improved on their ability to critique visual and literary cultural productions from Lusophone countries in their target language of Portuguese. Finally, they will have strengthened their written argumentation skills as demonstrated by the production of a comparative essay.

Syllabus

1) 'Childhood in Lusophone Cultures: Origins and Developments'
2) 'Portugal under Salazar: Transgression, Punishment and Redemption in Aniki-Bóbó (Manoel de Oliveira 1942, Portugal)'
3) 'Colonial Rule and Post-Conflict in Lusophone Africa in Na cidade vazia (Maria João Vanga, Angola, 2004)'
4) 'Childhood Imaginaries and the Brazilian Sertão in Mutum (Sandra Kogut, Brazil 2007)'
5) 'Youth, Class and Race Relations in Casa grande (Fellipe Barbosa, Brazil, 2015)'
6) 'Family, Nation and Religion in Pixote: a lei do mais fraco (Héctor Babenco, Brazil, 1981) and Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, Brazil 1998)'
7) Boyhood, Authoritarianism and 'Bare Life' under the Brazilian Dictatorship: O ano que os meus pais saíram de férias (Cao Hamburger, Brazil, 2006)'
8) 'Privileged Girlhood and Processes of Transition: À deriva (Heitor Dhalia, Brazil, 2009)'
9) 'Media, Myths and the Mis-representation of Youth: Como nascem os anjos (Murilo Salles, Brazil, 1996)'
10) 'Children's Participation in Creative Processes in Doméstica (Gabriel Mascaro, Brazil, 2012 [documentary])'

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Film Screenings	3	2.00	6.00
Lecture	10	1.00	10.00
Seminar	10	1.00	10.00
Private study hours			174.00
Total Contact hours			26.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Private study

Film viewings aside from those organised as screenings – 20 hours
Preparation for pair presentation – 20 hours
Preparation and writing of critique – 20 hours
Reading course materials/preparation for seminar discussion – 60 hours
Researching and writing of long comparative essay – 54 hours

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

- Informal monitoring and feedback in seminars.
- Feedback on essay plan in one of the seminars.
- Formal feedback on seminar presentation, critique and essay.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	3,000 words on at least two primary texts	60.00
Oral Presentation	15 Minutes, in pairs focussing on either or both primary texts	15.00
Critique	1,000 words on one of the primary texts, written in Portuguese	25.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Should any students fail the verbal presentation they will be given an alternative form of assessment (an essay or series of short answer questions) to complete individually by way of re-sit.

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 06/08/2015

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