INTRODUCTION TO SUBVERSION: VISUAL CULTURE AND NEW ARTISTIC REALITIES
The second semester of Film Theory 300 offered a rigorous exploration of contemporary visual culture. The students were encouraged to move beyond the immediate focus of the film to examine the “moving image” within the broader context of 21st-century global visual culture. Lectures delved into key themes such as science fiction, liminality, madness, “outsider art,” digital reality, and postfeminism. By analysing how these discourses shape visual phenomena, students gained a deeper understanding of the social and cultural forces that influence their own creative work and the ability to critically engage with the visual world around them.

TRAUMA AND MEMORY IN AFRIKAANS FAMILIES: A REFLEXIVE ESSAY BY ANIKA DE LANGE (SHE/HER)
This essay probes how trauma and memory intersect within the Afrikaans cultural context. Anika de Lange investigates how her personal experiences with religious and familial trauma, particularly the recent loss of her father, have influenced her filmmaking. Drawing on theories by Caruth, Meek, and Bordwell, she analyses two of her projects: the screenplay “Die Bloed Van Die Lam,” which explores guilt and redemption in a rural Afrikaans community, and the experimental film “I am Sam,” which grapples with the disintegration of memory and the impact of dementia. Through these projects, De Lange demonstrates how trauma shapes perception and influences artistic expression.

ROMANTICISM AND THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF IMAGINATION: EXPLORING EMOTION, IDENTITY, AND NATURE IN CONTEMPORARY SHORT FILMS BY AMÉLIE ZEELIE (SHE/HER)
This essay explores how Romanticism, an 18th-century movement emphasising imagination and emotion, is expressed in contemporary film. The author, Amélie Zeelie, analyses her three short films, “The Overcoat,” “Big,” and “Leonora,” to demonstrate how Romantic themes of individuality, the critique of industrialisation, and the importance of nature can be used in fi lm to explore the human condition. Zeelie’s analysis draws on Bruhn’s theory of Romanticism and the cognitive science of imagination, arguing that her films evoke nostalgia and a sense of wonder in viewers.

INTRODUCTION TO TRAUMA AND MEMORY IN THE COVENANT (RITCHIE 2023). A CHARACTER ANALYSIS.
In Semester 1 of Film Theory 300, students are introduced to a number of varying perspectives on the creation, interpretation, and influence of the cinematic medium in twenty-first-century society. Lectures focus on postmodernism and its powerful influence on the artistic circumstances of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and then examine the relativist / subjective approach taken to history through memory and trauma studies. For this essay, students were required to analyse Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (2023) from the perspective of memory and trauma studies, focusing particularly on the character of Ahmed and his unique experience in a short, argumentative essay.

GUY RITCHIE’S THE COVENANT (2023): THE WHITE-SAVIOR INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND THE PORTRAYAL OF A MIDDLE EASTERN MAN’S TRAUMA BY MIA ERASMUS (SHE/HER)
This essay investigates the traumas experienced by the non-white character Ahmed in Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (2023) through the theoretical lens of the white-saviour industrial complex. Mia presents a nuanced analysis of the film, noting that it is as complicated as postmodernism itself. Mia concludes that “The film is fifty percent a subversion of the white saviour trope and fifty percent an example of the white saviour trope” and is therefore characteristic of postmodernist pluralism.