Week 8

We are moving into the second unit of Modes of Reading, entitled 'Nation, Culture, Place'. The main lectures will be given by Dr. Pablo Mukherjee, and the unit information can be found here. As before we will be focusing our discussions on film and television. We will use the ideas raised in the lectures and readings to investigate different answers to the question 'What do we mean by English cinema?'

Please try to read Colin MacInnes' Absolute Beginners by next week (ideally by the lecture tomorrow) as I would like to discuss some ideas about this piece of work.

For next Monday's seminar, I would like you to indicate a film that immediately comes to mind when you think about English cinema. In about 150-words I'd like you to note some thoughts about what might make it 'English' - don't worry about constructing an argument or anything as sophisticated as that!

To get you started - here is the trailer to Shane Meadows' aptly-titled 'This Is England'. This is a film that I would whole-heartedly recommend anyway, and may generate some interesting ideas so do see it if you can (I'm happy to organise a screening in the department if enough people are interested, so do reply if you are!).