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Course Description

Summary

This seminar is a textual and cinematic study of specific categories of ineffable experiences. We will study altered states of consciousness, unexplainable phenomena, and unfathomable human experience, and analyze their representation in cinema. Grounded in film analysis and psychological, philosophical, and historical readings, we will address screenwriting, genre, lighting, and other cinematic devices used to explore esoteric questions of transcendence as depicted in film. We will confront the limits of human knowledge and the beliefs and mythologies that manifest beyond this threshold. We will watch films by: Maya Deren, Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Nagisa ÅŒshima, Nobuhiko Obayashi, Jennifer Reeder, Lars Von Trier, and Apichatpong Weresethakul. Students will write short responses to readings and scenes, and will create short video projects where they will formulate conceptual and formal tactics to illustrate novel personal interpretations of these experiences.