Poetry Workshop
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Introduction: Poetry Workshop
In celebration of a genre that stands on its own and lends its stimulation to our daily lives, a poetry workshop was held by Abigail Fagan in the 2023 summer term. This issue's Independent Studies Sections features ten poems produced in the context of this seminar.
- Shayan Rahmanian Koushkaki : Shiraz is in the heart / trilingual
- Lena Schroeder: the bare minimum
- Charlie Geitlinger: Words, Inherited I and II
- Sarah Willeford: The Quilt / 13 ways of looking at an Altoids Tin
- Aenne Dirks: Bathroom Prayers
- Nientke Peters: Pleasure in Pain
- Mandana Vahebi: On the Bar
Videographic Criticism
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Introduction: The “Research and Exhibition Artefact”
It is a fact that in writing about the cinema there is an inherent compromise in the process of analyzing audiovisual aspects. “Videographic Criticism” has paved the way for scholars to develop their arguments while maintaining the language of film. The second round of the Independent Studies course “Videographic Criticism,” led by Kathleen Loock with assistance from Alissa Lienhard and Lida Shams-Mostofi, invited a new group of students to select a film and work with that film over the course of the semester to produce scholarly video essays
The seven video essays in this section stem from a class on “Videographic Criticism" in the winter term 2022.
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Lida Shams-Mostofi: Representing the Unrepresentable: Trauma in Rocketman
Lida Shams-Mostofi’s video essay “Representing the Unpresentable: Trauma in Rocketman” delves into the representation of trauma in the biographical musical film Rocketman (2019), reflecting traumatic flashbacks of disturbing video sequences.
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Shirin Shokrollahi: Trauma Unleashed
Shirin Shokrollahi’s video essay “Trauma Unleashed” delves into the intricate layers of Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) to unravel the visceral portrayal of trauma and its aftermath, mapping the journey from fragmentation to wholeness within the film's multiversal chaos.
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Mandana Vahebi: Traumatic Grief
In this video essay, trauma is portrayed through the cinematic technique of Free Indirect Discourse (FID). The constant interchange between the camera’s narrative perspective and the character’s traumatic grief creates a blurred line that makes it difficult to discern a single, unified point of view. Consequently, FID introduces an artistic ambiguity that significantly enhances the film’s artistic value.
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Sadjad Qolami: A Reading in the Machine
Sadjad Qolami’s video essay utilizes the opening credits of A Separation (2011), featuring a photocopy machine in operation, as a metaphor for the cinematic apparatus – a machine generating copies of reality, a machine that indifferently unwinds no matter how harsh the depicted event is.
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Kerem Ak: Benh Zeitlin Breaks the Ice
Through his movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), Benh Zeitlin thaws the ice between humankind and nature and provides a unique and heartfelt perspective about how to come to terms with the more-than-human world.
