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
>
>

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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite