FS 008 PZ -Environmental Documentaries: Critical Analysis, Evidence and Persuasion

Institution: Pitzer

Description: This course introduces students to environmental controversies and the intercultural & social justice issues surrounding them through their documentation in film. Through class discussion and writing assignments, we will analyze the methods of persuasion and types of evidence these documentaries use to examine how films convey messages about what and who are international global environmental problems and how they incite an audience to audience to act. Readings range from excerpts from Aristotle’s Rhetoric to popular blogs on persuasive writing to scholarly materials that provide background, additional evidence, and counterarguments on the subjects of the documentaries. Major comparative topics include: environmental justice controversies over pollution surrounding the oil industry internationally and domestically (sites include: the Ecuadorian Amazon, Niger Delta, and Louisiana along the Mississippi River) and the “objectivity” vs. cultural biases in documentaries about the exploitation of whales and dolphins for food and use in exhibitions (issues include: Japanese vs. Norwegian whaling, dolphin hunting in Taiji, Japan, and orca hunting for aquaria in North America). Other topics to be studied include food production and the increasing privatization of water resources around the world.

Prerequisite(s): First-Year Seminars are required for all incoming freshman and do not have prerequisites.

First-Year seminars are not listed on the course schedule. Incoming students will be assigned to a first-year seminar and registered automatically.