Syllabi

Like other courses here, Video Activism combines production with theory on the various uses of video and how it is employed strategically.

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foerster_syllabus.pdf

This is a course designed to familiarize students with audio-visual production for social action, including nonprofit, advocacy, institutional, and museum display. The assignments include analyzing case studies of successful work, mapping the economic and social environment for media, meeting professional media producers, and developing proposals.

This course examines the history of video activism beginning with the introduction of the porta pak in the late 1960's, the development of video collectives, activist and public access television and culminating in video's role in the WTO and the events preceding and following September 11th. Through readings, screenings and discussions, you will examine the blurring lines between art, documentary, journalism and activism. Topics include but are not limited to the infusion of identity politics (shifts created through feminist, queer and race theory), youth action in the 1990's, the act of recording as defense, movement from vérité to personal documentary, and issues of distribution.

Compiled by Dr. Laura Stein, University of Texas at Austin, for her course The Social Documentary, this bibliography serves as a comprehensive reading guide for anyone interested in learning more about the genre.

This course will follow the evolution of gay and lesbian-themed documentary within the historical context of the gay and lesbian movement.