| Unit name | The Past on Screen: Nostalgia, Memory, History |
|---|---|
| Unit code | FATV30030 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Shaw |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of Film and Television |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
The Past on Screen invites students to reflect on how films and programmes draw from, shape, and reinterpret historical knowledge, cultural memories, and nostalgia for past eras, texts, styles, and genres. The past has long been a prominent source of material for screen fiction, whether in adaptations of history and classic literature or in popular genres like Westerns and Gothic horror, and film and television have long been acknowledged as powerful mediums for the dissemination of history and for shaping perspectives on the past. In a contemporary digital landscape marked by increased recycling and mashups, pop cultural nostalgia, remaking and rebooting, and creative past world-building, pasts now inhabit our screens in a variety of forms. This unit equips students with the theoretical, industrial, and cultural knowledge necessary to analyse the implications of nostalgia, history, and memory in written work and to navigate them in creative work.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
This unit builds on foundational concepts relevant to film and television studies such as adaptation, genre, remediation, and postmodernism, expanding on their relevancy in the context of how films and programmes depict, cite, and reimagine past events, periods, cultures, and texts. It also invites students to reconsider texts screened on other units in the context of their engagement with the past. It further develops students’ analytical, essay planning and writing skills through the complex, in-depth study of a specific area of film and television production and research.
Overview of Content
This unit allows students to investigate how film and TV texts negotiate the eras, events and texts of the past, as well as their contemporary cultural afterlives. Topics might include narrative and documentary depictions of historical events and figures; fictional period drama; retrospective screen genres like Gothic horror, the Western, neo-noir and medieval fantasy; pastiche, recycling, intertextuality and mashups; nostalgia for film and TV technologies, texts and genres; sequels, reboots, revivals and remakes;
creative past world-building; ‘living’ the past in reality TV; and anachronism.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit
The unit invites students to reflect on their own relationship with history, nostalgia, and memory as filtered through film and television and wider culture such as in online media, video games, music, and fashion. The unit affords students the knowledge and analytical skills to navigate why and how past events and periods are frequently mediated onscreen, considering ethical concerns and the significant impact visual media have on perceptions of the past. These questions will be relevant to their own
decisions in how to cite, remediate, and invite nostalgia for or reflection on the past.
Learning Outcomes:
Weekly screenings and seminars/workshops.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
Individual 5-minute video essay (30%) [ILOs 1-4]
3,000-word written essay (60%) [ILOs 1-4]
Contribution Mark (10%) [ILO 5]
When assessment does not go to plan
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. If you have self-certificated your absence from an assessment, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (this is usually in the next assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any extenuating circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. FATV30030).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The assessment methods listed in this unit specification are designed to enable students to demonstrate the named learning outcomes (LOs). Where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, schools will make reasonable adjustments to support a student to demonstrate the LO by an alternative method or with additional resources.
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
