Proposed Tenure-Line Position in Film and New Media

The following rationale and description for a specialist in film studies, 21st Century Literature, and New Genres was created for the Department of English & Rhetoric's Literature Strategic Planning Committee (LiSP) on April 2, 2012.

 

Rationale

 

ENGL 1102 Composition II is a three-genre (poetry, fiction, drama) introduction to literature through composition course. ENGL 2200 is also a three-genre, writing about literature course.  These two lower division courses set the stage for upper division genre courses in the novel, poetry, and drama as well as upper division period courses emphasizing the traditional genres  Not one ENGL course description mentions narrative film, a genre in development for over a century that, like drama, is based on the dialectic of literary, narrative language and performance.  Film is so established as a genre that it has engendered a child, narrative television. Over the last century, another popular form, comics, matured into a true literary art—the graphic novel; in the last thirty years, the graphic novel established itself as a canonical interdisciplinary genre combining fiction and the visual arts.  Finally, beginning in the 1960s with the Oulipo movement and continuing into the 1990s with hypertext literature and Storyspace and into today with immersive first-person videogames like Shadow of Colossus whose narratives test the player’s moral code, literature has been transformed by computer technology.

 

Since ENGL 1102 and 2200 are both three-genre courses on the same genres, we could revise these courses to help our students understand how to analyze and evaluate the new genres: Keep 1101 as is: a three-genre course on poetry, fiction, and drama; however, offer four-six sections per year taught by tenure-line faculty to ENGL majors only, like the cluster sections currently offered to CHEM majors. With 1101 teaching the traditional genres, 2200 could be revised to teach our ENGL majors three new genres like film, television, and the graphic novel.

 

We have a duty to update our curriculum not only for ourselves as lifelong learners and but especially our students who are graduating without knowing how to critically interpret film, television, graphic novels, and videogames—the ascendant genres of their contemporary lives.  We need faculty members who can bring our department into the twenty-first century by developing courses on film and television, the graphic novel, and new media like videogames.

 

Description

 

The Department of English and Rhetoric in the College of Arts and Sciences seeks a tenure-track assistant professor in Film Studies and New Genres, beginning August 2013. The successful candidate will teach lower division courses in the core such as composition and world literature, established upper division courses in contemporary literature, and upper division courses (which she develops) in genres like film, television, the graphic novel, videogames, and other literary new media. The teaching load for this position is 4/4. The candidate must have completed a Ph.D. and be eligible to work in the U.S. prior to the start of the appointment. Review of completed applications will begin November 1, 2012 and continue as long as needed. Interviews will be conducted at the annual meeting of the MLA. Send application letter, curriculum vita, statement of teaching philosophy, and unofficial transcripts to: Chair, Film Studies Search Committee, Department of English & Rhetoric, Georgia College & State University, Campus Box 044, Milledgeville, GA 31061.