College Seminar - Non-Western History (103-7-20)

Topic

Watching Narcos

Instructors

Lina M Britto
Harris Hall 302

Meeting Info

University Hall 218: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Crimes, deeds, and spoils of drug traffickers have saturated pop culture for the last decades becoming valuable raw materials for the entertainment industry. This course is designed for students to identify, trace, and analyze audiovisual productions on the so-called narcos in the Americas by watching films and TV shows; reading selected works of history, sociology, anthropology, and journalism (film criticism in particular); and practicing our research and writing skills in a series of individual and collaborative projects. The ultimate goal is to produce together an open-access digital repository on drug history as entertainment in the Americas.

Learning Objectives

The goals are to understand (a) the plot devices and aesthetic mechanisms with which cultural producers have commodified history as entertainment; and (b) the historical understandings regarding one of the most challenging problems of our times behind these types of narratives and imageries.

Evaluation Method

Oral presentations, response papers, Canvas discussion forum, final research project.

Class Attributes

WCAS College Seminar