Ethnographic Film and Documentary Form: History, Ethics and Aesthetics of Reality Based Media

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course explores the history, theory, and aesthetics of ethnographic and documentary film and related forms of reality based media as they intersect with ethnographic and other forms of qualitative research. In addition to canonical and historically groundbreaking works we will consider recent innovations, across a range of media platforms, that push and pull at the conventions of ethnographic and documentary realism and that make aesthetic exploration central to knowledge production. Students in the course are not expected or required to have any background in film studies, nor is prior exposure to documentary, ethnographic film, or anthropology a prerequisite.