fred asks a crucial question: >In the formation of a film department's curriculum, where does one draw a >line between what the Professor's (who are better informed) think is important Vs >what the students (who after all are the financial basis of the department) >want to learn? >I hope that's clear. I have no answer myself, and as a Ph.D. candidate my >allegiances are to both sides, so I'm just curious to see what listmembers >think and there is no simple answer . . . i think perhaps the sticking point comes in fred's assumption that the professors "are better informed" . . . no doubt they ARE [at least in most cases] significantly more informed [and more thoughtful and more experienced and one hopes even wiser] than either their students or than the administrators [to say nothing of the trustees] who ultimately control the curriculum . . . but what they are -- quite by design -- more informed about are the specific questions and issues that constitute their field of endeavor and inquiry . . . to that extent they may be less well informed about the contexts within which those endeavors fit --and here figuring out who has the clearest vision becomes especially tricky . . . and the problem becomes particularly acute when the issue is one of the craft of filmmaking . . . while, to take a stupidly obvious example, i certainly value the work of constance penley more than i value the work of robert luketic [director of LEGALLY BLONDE} i'm not sure i'd want her rather than him teaching film production in my department it's one of the many ironies besetting this conversation that it surely ought to be among the primary goals of a socially conscientious and progressive film theory precisely to be aware of the "real" [as opposed to purely theoretical] value of its own enterprise . . . at the same time we can hardly expect a scholar working on, say, the syntax of the films by john ford to always be looking out for how this scholarship might be useful . . . that's not what scholars do that's why having this conversation is itself so important -- and i hope it continues . . . at the same time i have to repeat my earlier caveat that if we [the community of film scholars] simply takes it for granted that what we do is self-justifying and of such obvious value and significance that any thoughtful person could see it, then we are fools or charlatans, or maybe both mike ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html