The Modern World Through Documentary Films

Taught by Steve Schrenzel

This course, taught once a week, will use documentary films as a medium to explore contemporary issues and contemporary history. The documentaries watched and analyzed will be among the most important films of the past 15 years, and will cover topics such as food security, globalization, the economic crisis, global crises, war, etc. Students will learn about the art of documentary filmmaking and learn to view media in the modern age with a critical eye, with particular focus on truth, objectivity vs. subjectivity, ethics, production techniques, and manipulation.

(Photo by Fernando de Sousa in Melbourne, Australia (Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], undefined)