Through the Lens of Post-Colonialism and Cultural Humility

Short Description:
This textbook offers students a way to appreciate and understand film from global civilizations and cultures. The chapters introduce terminology and technology in filmmaking as well as critical methodologies for understanding film as a global art form. Students are encouraged to gain a deeper understanding of world cultures through the perspective of native filmmakers.

Long Description:
In fourteen chapters, An Introduction to World Film explores topics in cinema and films by major international directors including: Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Abbas Kiarostami, Ousmane Sembène and Haifaa Al-Mansour. Realism, Neorealism and Dramatic Filmmaking techniques are explored and illustrated in the chapters. The book is chronological, beginning with the first film innovators, and the invention of the Cinematographe, by the Lumière brothers in Lyon, France. The book chronicles major stylistic innovations in International Cinema and also offers geographical and political context for the films presented.

Word Count: 19908

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This online exhibit explores the history and development of the electric guitar. It includes information about the instrument designers and the musicians who influenced the creation of new guitars and innovations in their sound. Examples of about 40 different guitars are included with descriptions of each. There is also information on how different types of acoustic and electric guitars operate with the sounds of each available for listening. Finally, addition information, references, and links are included.

Concept Note for the 2023 Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation

Short Description:
In the Middle Belt of Nigeria, three major language families converge in a region with cultural diversity rivaling the Amazon Basin. According to Ethnologue, there are 340 distinct languages. Each is accompanied by Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), including music and dance, poetry and puppetry, handicrafts, and healing practices. The region has received comparatively little attention from scholars. Countless traditions remain unknown and undocumented. Only the Tiv’s Kwagh-Hir theatrical tradition has been inscribed by UNESCO, leaving an urgent need for expanded cultural heritage preservation efforts. This is a project proposal for cultural preservation in the central region of Nigeria.

Long Description:
In the Middle Belt of Nigeria, three major language families converge in a region with cultural diversity rivaling the Amazon Basin. According to Ethnologue, there are 340 distinct languages. Each is accompanied by Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), including music and dance, poetry and puppetry, handicrafts, and healing practices. The region has received comparatively little attention from scholars. Countless traditions remain unknown and undocumented. Only the Tiv’s Kwagh-Hir theatrical tradition has been inscribed by UNESCO, leaving tremendous potential for new inscriptions.

ICH is one of Nigeria’s great treasures, yet artifacts and archeological sites dominate discussions of preservation while vulnerable traditions languish, often disappearing without a trace. Many Middle Belt communities are eager to share their traditions but do not have resources to do so. In contrast, Yorùbá is among the most widely studied indigenous and diasporic cultures. Ethnic minorities have been marginalized for centuries by slave raiding, land encroachment, and economic exclusion. Surviving communities deserve the benefits of cultural preservation and should be celebrated for their distinct and resilient cultures at home and in diaspora. In 2021, our team recorded musical practices that strongly resemble American genres like Delta Blues and Funk.

We will utilize American expertise to build capacity among Nigerian field researchers reflecting the Fulbright-Hays Act as a basis for the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. The project will bring HBCU faculty and students into the orbit of ICH stakeholders. HBCUs have a long-standing history and vested interest in welcoming African-born faculty and students and appreciating the cultural diversity they bring to diaspora communities. Engaging HBCU students in cultural heritage preservation will be a focus of the project, leveraging American technical skills with Nigerian cultural competencies to support US Mission Goals.

Our documentation drive will produce thousands of audiovisual primary sources with the potential to fuel knowledge- and creativity-based economic growth. We will collaborate with participating communities on a three-phase ethnographic process: (1) Inventory, (2) Documentation, and (3) Preventive Conservation. Grant products will be disseminated widely, benefitting the communities, the American and Nigerian public, and scholars in a variety of fields. The Middle Belt faces an array of challenges, including climate change, substance abuse, pastoralist conflict, and religious fundamentalism. The US Mission’s objective of promoting peaceful dialogue will be lived through partnership with CONAECDA, a coalition of community development associations formed in recognition of the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Cultural preservation will promote stability through inclusive education, interethnic and intergenerational conviviality, and constructive identity formation among young people.

Word Count: 9043

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This course is an introduction to Islam from the perspective of media and sound studies, intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. From the time of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam in its various manifestations has had a complex relationship with media. While much contemporary writing focuses on Islam in the media, this course explores how many aspects of Islamic practice and thinking might be understood as media technologies that facilitate the inscription, storage and transmission of knowledge. Central questions include: How do Islam and media technologies relate? What kinds of practices of inscription and transmission characterize Islam in all its varieties across time and place? How might Islamic thought and practice be understood in light of databases, networks, and audiovisual sensation? Given the rich diversity in Islam historically and geographically, emphasis will be placed on these interconnected but divergent practices from the earliest revelations of the Qur'an to contemporary Islamist political movements, with geographies spanning from Indonesia to the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Europe and North America. In addition to exploring these themes through reading and writing, students will be encouraged to complete course assignments and projects in media, using audiovisual documentary or composition as a means of responding to the course themes.

This course surveys both cinematic and literary representations of diverse eras and aspects of Japanese culture such as the classical era, the samurai age, wartime Japan and the atomic bombings, social change in the postwar period, and the appropriation of foreign cultural themes, with an emphasis on the modern period. Directors include Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Teshigahara. Authors include Kobo Abe and Yukio Mishima. Films shown have subtitles in English. Taught in English.

This course covers medieval Japanese society and culture from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries, when political power rested largely in the hands of feudal warriors. Topics include religion (especially Zen Buddhism); changing concepts of "the way of the warrior;" women under feudalism; popular culture; and protest and rebellion. Presentations include weekly feature films. Assigned readings include many literary writings in translation.

Durch Anklicken des Links finden Sie unten zwei Audiodateien, die unter CC BY-SA 4.0 lizenziert sind:

Audio Version 1 von gschrems © 2018 by Hubert Göritzer, Benedikt Plößnig und Jasmin Wallner von gschrems is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Audio Version 2 von gschrems © 2018 by Hubert Göritzer, Benedikt Plößnig und Jasmin Wallner von gschrems is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

The purpose of this course is to learn how to make a short motion picture starting with pre-production. As we walk through all the steps of making this movie, you will prepare yourself for entering film school.

A Brief Survey of World Music

Short Description:
A short and engaging introduction to music around the world

Long Description:
Listen to the world. Explore music from around the globe. Acquaint yourself with a variety of international music styles and traditions. Investigate issues in popular music from both a social perspective (such as race, religion, language, economics, gender, diaspora, and politics), as well as an intrinsically musical position (beat, pitch, meter, rhythm, form, timbre, texture). Learn about how music reinforces values and negotiates tradition with innovation; how rural and urban contexts inform musical experiences; how soundscapes shape identity. Learn how to collect sounds and ask questions: what is this instrument’s name, how is it played and built; who plays it, why, and for whom? Why do all civilizations sing, play, and perform music? Like storytelling, like transcendence, spirituality, and religion, like politics and societal hierarchies shaped by taste, music is an intrinsic part of humanness. So, listen to world.

Word Count: 39418

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This is a textbook meant for use within The Living Arts (FINE 101) -- Chapters include introductions to Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Theatre, Music, and Dance.

Course Description: An interdisciplinary survey of human creative efforts as they relate to each other. The visual and performing arts are compared with similarities stressed.

Word Count: 1721

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Music & Math Using Supercollider

Word Count: 1861

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With Blues, Jazz, and Soul Music as a foundational backdrop, Memphis has made many other significant contributions to music.  Artists such as Maurice White, (leader/founder of the 70s/80s supergroup Earth, Wind, and Fire), Big Star, and even the most recent Band Camino all call Memphis Home.  These artists along with others continue to push the creative envelope and discover new avenues of expression for Memphis Music.     

Blues and Soul music intersect in Memphis Tennessee.  Southern Soul as it is usually called, originated in Memphis and was greatly influenced by the blues of the city and the Mississippi Delta.  

A Look at Memphis Jazz Piano before James Williams, Donald Brown, and Mulgrew Miller made their significant contributions.  In addition to the great Phineas Newborn jr., Charles Thomas and Harold Mabern also made a tremendous impact.  Live music at local venues provided informal educational opportunities for students of all ages.   

This is a look at some of the more successful jazz pianists from Memphis Tennessee.  Each artist has experienced national and international acclaim as both a pianist and composer.  What's more, they are all comtemporaries having attended the University of Memphis (then Memphis State University)at the same time.  

An Introduction to Cinema

Short Description:
A free and open-source introduction to the art and science of moving pictures, offering in-depth exploration of how cinema communicates, and what, exactly, it is trying to say.

Long Description:
A free and open-source introduction to the art and science of cinema. From the earliest iterations to the latest innovations, this introductory text explores the tools and techniques of mise-en-scene, narrative form, cinematography, editing, sound and acting, how each has contributed to the evolution of cinematic language, and how that evolution implicates critical issues of representation in mass media. Moving Pictures offers in-depth examination of how cinema communicates, and what, exactly, it is trying to say.

Author Contact: russell.sharman@gmail.com

Word Count: 55639

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Word Count: 172474

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