University of Texas at Austin Department of Middle Eastern Studies TUR 329: TURKISH CINEMA Spring 2019 Unique #: 41385 Course Hours and Room: Instructor: Jeannette Okur MWF 12:00-1:00 PM in PAR 103 Office: CAL 509 Office Hours: T-TH 11:00 AM-12:00 PM Email: jeannette.okur @austin.utexas.edu or by appointment Course Description: Global flows of information, technology, and people have defined Turkish cinema since its inception in the early 20th century. This course, taught entirely in Turkish, will introduce different approaches to studying cinema, while also providing students with the opportunity to achieve advanced-level language skills. This is a screening-intensive course, and we will watch a wide range of films, including popular, arthouse, auteur-made, generic, and independent works. In each unit, we will read film history and criticism in both Turkish and English and closely examine primary sources in their original language. Our goal will be to determine what constitutes Turkish cinema as a national cinema and identify the ways in which its constitutive elements are part of transnational movements. To this end, we will discuss the socio-political contexts, industrial trends, aesthetic sensitivities, and representation strategies of selected films. By constantly reformulating the essential question of “what Turkish cinema is,” we seek to understand how Turkey’s filmmakers, critics, cultural policy-makers, and viewers have answered this question in different historical periods. Prerequisite: TUR 320K/TUR381K with a letter grade of C or higher (or via placement via successful performance on the DMES Turkish placement exam) Language/Content Learning Objectives: By the end of TUR 329 you will, inşallah: • initiate, sustain, and close a general conversation with a number of strategies appropriate to a range of circumstances and topics, despite errors. • narrate, describe and interpret in major time frames using connected discourse of paragraph length, with increasing consistency. • communicate facts, relay opinions, and talk casually about topics of public and personal interest, using general vocabulary and film terminology • understand routine social interaction and main ideas (in the films watched) and most details of informal connected discourse on a variety of topics beyond the immediacy of the situation. • understand main ideas and some facts from aural texts, including interviews with film directors, actors and critics. • transcribe, re-voice and translate character dialog in short film clips with increasing accuracy. • read prose several paragraphs in length, and (particularly if presented with a clear underlying structure and if the prose is predominantly in familiar sentence patterns) understand the main ideas and facts. • distinguish between facts and opinions and identify the argumentative features of prose several paragraphs in length. • take notes, write cohesive summaries, as well as narratives and descriptions of a factual nature, formulating paragraphs in which the use of cohesive elements is limited, but an expanded vocabulary base and good control of the basic structures is evident. • write short critical essays (at a similar discourse level) that display appropriate use of primary and secondary sources, and organizational coherence. • display limited sociocultural proficiency, e.g. will be able to 1 o engage in social conversations and to greet, bid farewell, express desires and requests, and share opinions on a range of personal and public issues in a manner that is appropriate both to our American academic setting and a potential Turkish social setting o relate general information and brief historical facts about Turkish cinema, including the names of important people and major institutions. o access and evaluate information and diverse perspectives available through Turkish film journals, news and social media o recall key details about the socio-political contexts, industrial trends, aesthetic sensitivities, and representation strategies of selected Turkish films, when these are referenced by native speakers o identify differences between your own culture and Turkish culture as reflected in film narratives and character speech/interaction, then attempt to adjust your behavior and linguistic use accordingly. Course Topic Outline I. Pre- and Early Yeşilçam: Cinema in Turkey until the Late 1950s A. Introductions B. Early Cinema C. Sound, Music, Narrative II. High Yeşilçam: Cinema in Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s A. Industry and Dubbing B. Genres and Films 1. Melodrama/Arabesk 2. Comedy 3. Copy Culture, Sci-Fi and Historical Fiction III. Yeşilçam ‘Misfits’ A. Social Realist Auteurs B. Documentary Educators IV. Post-Yeşilçam, or the New Cinema of Turkey (since 1990) A. Socially Conscious Storytelling: New Auteurs B. New Melodrama/Arabesk C. New Comedy D. New Documentary E. Diaspora Filmmakers, International Collaborations V. New Trends: Turkish TV series in the Global Market Course Materials: 1. Canvas: In this class we will use Canvas — a web-based course management system at http://courses.utexas.edu — to distribute course materials, communicate online, and post assignments and grades. You will receive emails with important course information from your instructor via Canvas’s email tool, so be sure to check your email frequently. With the exception of Savaş Arslan’s Cinema in Turkey. A New Critical History (Oxford UP, 2011), which you are required to purchase or read on course reserve in the PCL, all the required and suggested readings (and reading exercises) will be posted on Canvas in pdf, link or eComma form. (eComma is a digital social reading tool that we will use to perform interactive close readings of some Turkish language texts. You can learn more about it here: https://ecomma.coerll.utexas.edu/ ). You are also highly encouraged to read Timothy Corrigan’s A Short Guide to Writing About Film (Pearson, 7th, 8th or 9th ed.) in the first few weeks of the semester in order to better understand what you are expected to turn in as your written and audiovisual assignments. All required and recommended book resources, as well as other books related to Turkish film, will be on course reserve in the PCL. 2 2. Almost every week, you will be required to watch one or two Turkish films outside of class, in preparation for class discussion. Although you only need to watch the required films on the list, you are, of course, encouraged to watch the recommended films, too. Almost all of these films are in Turkish, some with and some without English subtitles (or Turkish captions). Never fear, you will learn strategies to successfully view films without English subtitles! Most of these films or their online streaming links will be posted on Canvas; many of them will also be available on course reserve in the UT Fine Arts Library, where you may reserve a room and all-region DVD/VHS player to view them. NO EXCUSES WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR NOT VIEWING THE REQUIRED WEEKLY FILMS! 3. Other course materials and exercises pertaining to grammar, vocabulary, etc. will also be provided via Canvas. Note: When writing compositions, you may use an online Turkish-English dictionary like www.seslisozluk.com or http://tureng.com/en/turkish-english . Purchasing any other Turkish-English dictionary is unnecessary. If you feel the need for a more systematic grammar reference book, Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake’s Turkish: An Essential Grammar. New York: Routledge, 2011, is recommended. Course Requirements and Grading: Attendance and Participation [in Turkish] 25% Language Learning Journal [in Turkish and English] 20% Short Homework Assignments [in Turkish] 20% Oral (Video) Presentation [in Turkish] 10% Critical Essay Assignments [in Turkish] 15% Captioning, Subtitling, and Dubbing Assignments [in Turkish and English] 10% Course Requirements and Grading in Detail: 1. Attendance and Participation (25%): You are required to attend class regularly and to participate actively and consistently throughout the semester. All viewing and reading assignments must be completed before class sessions. You should demonstrate your command of the assigned materials by contributing meaningfully to class discussions. Class time will be devoted to discussing/interpreting the films you will have viewed and/or texts you will have read prior to coming to class. Although your instructor may occasionally present some contextual background information or give necessary grammar instruction, the bulk of course activity will depend on students’ active oral and written participation. Because the in-class focus will be on activating the vocabulary and structures that you will have prepared at home through your homework, you should expect to spend at least 75% of class time doing activities in pairs and small groups. Thus, attendance and active participation in class are essential to your making good language proficiency gains and doing well in the class. This part of your grade will be based on a daily “attendance and participation” grade assigned by your instructor according to the following criteria: 3- You are actively engaged in developing your Turkish proficiency by discussing the course material and communicating in Turkish as much as possible with your partner/classmates/teachers from the moment you walk into the class until you leave it. Full credit will be given when you, i. arrive to class on time ii. are well prepared for the class, which means that you have carefully completed any viewing, reading and/or writing assignments, and noted your observations