Screening New Zealand: Cinema, Globalization, and CAT

The curriculum includes the following two classes:

New Zealand Stories: Travel and Storytelling
In this public rhetoric and practical communication class, students will use media narratives from stand-up to journalism, documentary, and TV episodes to explore how we tell stories about travel, using their experiences in Auckland as the fodder for much of their writing. From walking on a volcano to visiting museums, and wandering the city of Auckland, this class will interrogate how notions of travel are shaped by privilege, experience, and histories of a place. This will be an experiential, discussion, and workshop driven class. Use reflective strategies to inform your rhetorical practices of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The final project will be a public-facing, online magazine (online), where each student researches and writes a longform journalism piece, centered on New Zealand and the themes discussed in class.

Filming Aotearoa/New Zealand: National Cinema & Post-Coloniality
This class focuses on the history and development of New Zealand’s national film industry, with attention to indigenous Māori filmmaking. The class will pair work such as Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and more mainstream New Zealand films like The Piano (Jane Campion), with post-colonial theory such as Partha Chatterjee’s The Nation & Its Fragments and excerpts from Māori filmmaker Barry Barclay’s Our Own Image (including his concept of a Fourth Cinema). Making distinct use of the city of Auckland and its position in the New Zealand film industry, students will visit the Hobbiton, Auckland Film Studios, and explore filming locations that are sites of global productions such as King Kong and Lord of the Rings. Through reading theoretical texts, delving into the works of New Zealand filmmakers such as Campion and Taika Waititi, studio tours, and learning about New Zealand’s film history, this class will explore national film at the nexus national identity, colonization, indigenous filmmaking and activism, and globalization.

Instructor
Both classes will be taught by Phoebe Bronstein, Ph.D. Bronstein is the Director of Academic Programs for the University of California San Diego’s Sixth College and an Associate Teaching Professor in the Culture, Art, and Technology Program. She most often teaches classes on media history, race, and gender and her research focuses on intersections of race, gender, and place in American TV. Even though she studies American TV, she is an avid watcher of New Zealand murder mysteries and has been waiting for an excuse to teach about and travel in New Zealand. When not teaching or watching TV (obviously for work), you might find her walking and hiking all over San Diego. She has lived all over the U.S. and loves to travel and is a big believer in study abroad.

You will earn 8 UC San Diego quarter credits for this program.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Visit the UC San Diego website for the Screening New Zealand: Cinema, Globalization, and CAT program.

Contact Tonia Pizer, UC San Diego Global Seminars Coordinator, by email or phone at 858.534.1123 with any questions regarding the program, its content, or requirements.