Brief course description
This seminar is a continuation of VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY. AN INTRODUCTION and its goal is to get a closer look at the phenomenon of film. During the seminar the students will discuss selected films and some written texts.

Full course description
Anthropological film (as well as visual anthropology) undergoes nowadays a renaissance. New festivals and new film productions are abundant. Still, that does not mean that the anthropological film has clear and generally accepted definition. One thing is more and more clear - anthropological film cannot be just a simpler form of transmitting anthropological knowledge. Anthropological film should not serve as a visual version of anthropological books. Films with critical angle can show human being in his/her whole sensual entirety. Film engaging all senses of a viewer is able to pass on certain experiences more fully. It offers kind of insight, which might be hard to verbalize and paradoxically does not have to be reduced to visual category. Film is able to transmit meanings that are difficult or impossible to codify, the ones that Roland Barthes calls "obtuse meanings". This seminar is a continuation of "Introduction to visual anthropology" and its goal is to get a closer look at the phenomenon of film. During the seminar the students will discuss selected films and some written texts.