Course Schedule
Introduction
"The Male Gaze"
SCREENING: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)
Early Production and Representation of Women in Film
SCREENING: Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (Pamela Green, 2018)
Classical Hollywood Auteurs Dorothy Arzner & Ida Lupino
SCREENING: Working Girls ( Dorothy Arzner, 1931); Not Wanted (Elmer Clifton/Ida Lupino, 1949)
Gender, Sexuality and Ways of Seeing
SCREENING: Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992)
Post-Colonial Imaginings / Afrofuturism
SCREENING: I Am Not A Witch (Rungano Nyoni, 2017)
Women in Action
SCREENING: The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2020)
Women in the Avant-Garde
SCREENING: Terror Nullius: A Political Revenge Fable in Three Acts (Soda_Jerk, 2018)
New Waves
SCREENING: Daisies (Věra Chytilová, 1966)
Midterm
Behind the Lens
SCREENING: Cameraperson (Kristin Johnson, 2016)
Women in Arab & Middle Eastern Cinema
SCREENING: At Five in the Afternoon (Samira Makhmalbaf, 2003)
Funny Women
SCREENING: Nine to Five (Colin Higgins, 1980)
The Monstrous Feminine
SCREENING: Jennifer's Body (Karyn Kusama, 2009)
The Oldest Profession
SCREENING: Working Girls (Lizzie Borden, 1986)
Feminist Documentary
SCREENING: Varda by Agnès (Agnès Varda, 2019)
Don't Be Melodramatic
SCREENING: Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
Final Project/Paper
Important Dates Summer 2024:
Day Class Begins: June 3
Last Day to Drop Class for 100% Refund: June 6
Last Day to Add: June 11
Last Day to Drop Without 'W': June 11
Last Day to Drop With 'W': July 15
Day Class Ends: July 28
Final Grades Available via MyRam: August 7
Assignments:
Our class starts at 8am on Monday, June 3rd. The course consists of 17 Modules. This summer class covers 2 Module each week. You will be able to read material, watch films, and complete assignments for each week beginning each Monday at 8am. All assignments and quizzes for each week must be completed by 11:59pm on Sundays. Most Modules will require a discussion post, a response post, and a quiz.
All quizzes are multiple choice and consist of 5 questions. You will have 10 minutes for each Module quiz. The midterm is a short essay assignment that covers Modules 1-8 and the final project/paper assignment will be available after the Midterm.
The class requires a minimum of about 8 hours of work per Module. You will fall behind if you do not plan ahead and complete the work throughout each week. You will not be able to watch feature films, complete the reading (and take quiz(zes) on the reading) and write a discussion post/response post for each Module if you wait until the weekend to complete the work. Discussion assignments make up the majority of the final grade and they require time to receive full points.
I cannot open Modules before their scheduled time to accommodate travel plans, vacation etc..
Attendance:
Students must login and complete work on Canvas in order to stay in the class. Students who do not complete all work (both discussion post assignments and quiz in Module 1 & 2) from the first week by Sunday, June 9th at 11:59pm will be dropped from the class. Students who do not complete two consecutive discussion assignments (both the initial post and response post) and do not communicate with me will be dropped from the class. Any student who falls below a 60% (total grade) at any point before the completion of Module 9 and does not communicate with me will be dropped from the class. I will maintain grade book records via Canvas.
Please see the City College of San Francisco's standards for Substantive Interaction for Distance Learning Courses for information about requirements as described in California Code of Regulations, Title 5: Education, under Chapter 6, Article 1 on Distance Education.
Online and Hybrid Courses: Substantive participation is considered necessary for normal progress in an online or hybrid class. Therefore, a student taking an outline or hybrid course must participate in the class during the first week, and regularly participate throughout the term according to the requirements listed on the instructor's syllabus. Otherwise, the student may be dropped by the instructor as stated in AR 5075 Course Adds, Drops, and Withdrawals or as stated on the instructor's syllabus. Faculty will define required participation in the syllabus for an online or hybrid course and will determine the consequences of a lack of participation.
Completing quizzes or tests is not considered substantive interaction to satisfy attendance in this class. You must complete both the initial post and response post in each discussion assignment to meet the standards of 'instructor-to-student contact' and 'student-to-student contact' as outlined in CCSF's Substantive Interaction for Distance Learning Courses. Completing the response post and refraining from completing the initial post in each discussion assignment does not satisfy the attendance requirement in this class.
I will make my best effort to contact students at least once before dropping them from the course, but keep in mind I typically have over 120 students per semester. Students are responsible for dropping or withdrawing from the course before the posted deadlines (see "Important Dates"). Keep in mind that I must report accurate census reports for all my classes after the first three full weeks of instruction. I also must report accurate records of midterm and final grades. Failure to do so may result in several consequences for CCSF, myself, and my students: the most serious accusation being involvement with financial aid fraud. I will contact students via Canvas Inbox. Please make sure that you check your Canvas Inbox or link Canvas messaging to your CCSF email or preferred email address.
Discussions
All students will be separated into two discussion groups for each Discussion assignment. The discussion groups allow you to engage with fewer posts in more detail as opposed to reading 60-80 posts each week/module. The people in your discussion group may change as I try to maintain even numbers in each group as the semester progresses. When you enter a discussion assignment, your discussion group will be visible to you at the top of the page.
I have provided detailed grading rubrics in each discussion assignment that outline how posts are graded. The discussions are graded from 0 points to 3 points. You must meet word count requirements, include embedded screenshots in your initial post, and respond to at least two classmate to earn full points for each discussion assignment.
Quizzes
All quizzes contain five questions. You will have ten minutes for each quiz. The questions will ask you about the reading, Module content, and details about the feature film in each Module. IMPORTANT: You have to watch the feature film in each Module carefully: take notes on character names, relationships between people, pivotal scenes and events in the film etc. Some questions will present a shot from the film and ask you about people and events in relationship to that shot. You cannot Google the answers to these questions, they are designed to give easy points to those who watched the film and provide zero points to those who did not. These film questions make up at least two questions in each quiz. I will grade your quiz as soon as I can after the deadline. Correct answers will not be revealed to you until I grade your quiz. Please take quizzes via an Ethernet connected device (desktop/laptop computers). I cannot reset quizzes because your Wi-Fi was disconnected. I cannot reschedule quizzes. You have one attempt for each quiz in the course.
Midterm
The midterm is a short essay assignment that covers the first half of the course and is designed to explore each student's incoming and current knowledge/engagement with the course material, films, theories and ideas explored.
I will grade your midterm and provide feedback as soon as I can after the deadline.
Final Paper/Project
The final project/paper assignment will be provided after the Midterm. You will have ample time to develop your idea(s)/project. If you select a creative project (film, artwork, photography, presentation, etc.) you must also submit a written statement outlining the project's interaction with specific ideas, theories, films, filmmakers, etc. covered in the course. All projects are expected to deeply explore key ideas, films, filmmakers and/or theories.
I will grade your final and provide feedback as soon as I can after the deadline.
Grading
Discussion Posts & Response Posts (50%)
Quizzes (15%)
Midterm (15%)
Final (20%)
Late assignments cannot be accepted except in severe circumstances. You will not receive any points for late work. Also, please keep an eye on the “Announcements” link on the left side of the course homepage. Recent Announcements will also appear on the course home page.
Final Grades
100-90 = A
89-80 = B
79-70 = C
69-60 = D
< 59 = F
Standards of Conduct
Students who register in CCSF classes are required to abide by the CCSF Student Code of Conduct for this class, especially Number 8:
Academic or intellectual dishonesty such as cheating, plagiarism, or the use of generative tools (including but not limited to GPT-4, ChatGPT, Claude, Cohere), without the permission of the instructor to produce responses to school tasks or activities.
Violation of the code is basis for referral to the Student Conduct Coordinator or dismissal from class or from the College.
See the Office of Student Affairs.
See the Office of Student Affairs.