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Sunday, September 12, 2010

Another Film Theory Assignment

Like the previous assignment, the challenge is to "de-allegorize". This time you will be working on a scene from The Patriot. How, then, is it an allegory for the composition of an academic paper? Hint: the clip begins with some "motivation" and "outlining"; the "writing" proper begins at 6:33. Warning: violence throughout. Not for kids.


2 comments:

Jonathan said...

An elderly set of conservatives scholars decides to mount an attack on a younger group within the same discipline--a group that is more passionate and energetic but not as well organized. They decide to make an example out of one young Turk in particular, who is rather impulsive about making his opinions about the old guard public.

The upstart group then decides that they will spare no mercy in this academic struggle for dominance. Until now, they have been happy to snipe away at the edges, but now they decide to found a journal that will make their position known. They prepare in secret and launch the first issue, which takes down the senior scholars individually and by name. The leader of the upstart group is a maverick scholar (Mel Gibson) who uses some of his graduate students to do some of the research. Some of the flaws in the older group's research are quite obvious, like Red Coats in a forest.

However, the battle is not over. There are individual skirmishes that take place in the letters to the editor columns of several journals.

Thomas said...

Nice attempt, Jonathan! But I was thinking something less dramatic. Something about thesis statements, and paragraph structure. My solution to this assignment is going to seem a bit, heh heh, prosaic. I'll post something next week.