The way that this has been handled at the University of Iowa provides a good model. In proseminars devoted to national cinemas over the past decade, a film scholar (usually Dudley Andrew) has collaborated with an area studies specialist to teach the course (e.g., I taught an Irish film proseminar with Dudley; Philip Lutgendorf worked with Dudley on an film Indian proseminar). This approach goes beyond tapping linguistic skills, of course, and takes us into the territory of indigenous, taken-for-granted knowledge of the specific everyday backgrounding the films in question. Cheryl Herr At 02:00 PM 8/7/00 +0100, you wrote: >Dear all, > >this is a question to all of you who teach film at universities: > >Do you consider it legitimate to teach a course on national cinemas of >countries whose language you don't speak so that you will not be able to >give any attention to the dialogues in their original language? Or do you >consider this a violation of academic standards? So, as an example, would >you teach a course on New German Cinema only if you speak german or would >you dare to just rely on english subtitles in your own understanding of >the films? >I am asking because I think about teaching a course on asian cinemas but >I am very unsure about this project as I do not speak nor understand any >asian language. > >Thomas Morsch >Film Dept. >Freie Universitaet Berlin > >---- >Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite >http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite > > ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite