This course will concentrate on analyzing representations of sexuality in relation to difference, power and discrimination in contemporary Western cinema. Viewing films that represent a diversity of sexual vantage points in a variety of directorial styles, ENG220 participants will evaluate the construction of sexualities in contemporary film. Beginning with overtly heterocentric films, such as What Women Want (Nancy Meyers, 2000) and Fatal Attraction (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), students will learn to critically explore and evaluate typical and atypical representations of hetero- and homosexuality, queerness, sexual aggression and homophobia, transvestism, transsexualism and intersexuality as well as intersections of sexuality and discrimination in terms of age and race. Our exploration will be activated through student participation in research, writing, experiential exercise, group discussion forums and personal reflection.
Jillian St. Jacques
Instructor
Oregon State University
Moreland 352
2550 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis,
OR
97331 USA
Tel:
541-737-1662
Email contact form
Credentials
- PhD Candidate. Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, 2004-present
- M.F.A. California Institute of the Arts 1995
- B.F.A. San Francisco Art Institute 1992
- BA Journalism. California State University, Northridge 1997
Research
Jillian St. Jacques teaches Writing for Media, with an emphasis on print journalism and the role of media in popular culture. His research interests and publications include essays and articles on the representation of sexual ambiguity in works of adaptation, and the political framing of alterity and abjection in literature and film. Central to Jillian’s teaching and research is the ongoing university-wide commitment to developing community discussion on issues of difference, power and discrimination. Recent publications include Adaptation Theories, a collection of scholarly works on contemporary adaptation theory, essays and articles in The Journal of Visual Culture and Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, and short stories in Fiction International, Black Ice and Nobodaddies. His journalism has appeared in The Harford Courant, The Durango Herald, The Canandaigua Daily Messenger and The Greece Post. His work in public relations has won awards from The National School Public Relations Association and The New York Schools Public Relations Association.
Areas of specialization Media studies, cultural analysis, issues in difference, power and discrimination, trans/gender studies, feminist film theories, postfeminist psychoanalytic theory, contemporary adaptation studies
Selected publications Adaptation Theories, ed. The Netherlands: Jan van Eyck Academie Press, 2011
"Amusement Dark: The Use of ‘Black Humor’ in the Installations of Adel Abidin.” Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism special issue, The Aesthetics of Atrocity, Summer 2011
“Retrotranslations of Post-transsexuality, Notions of Regret.” Journal of Visual Culture (6) April 2007
“Embodying a Transsexual Alphabet.” Joe Boone & Karin Quimby, eds., Queer Frontiers: Millennial Geographies, Genders and Generations, University of Wisconsin Press, 2000
“Case Histories,” Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism (26), May 1999
“Transseksuaalisen koiran ajatuksenjuoksua” [Preambles of a Transsexual Dog]. Taava Koskinen, ed., Kurtisaaneista kunnian naisiin [From courtesans to honorable women], University of Helsinki Press, 1997
Course Information
Since the golden days of print journalism, and the rock solid reporting of correspondents like Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow and Kit Coleman, there has been an explosion of media culture and forms. We still have “traditional” media—magazines, journals, newspapers, newsletters, press releases, television shows, and radio. But the advent of interactive media has also given us Twitter, Facebook, blogs, podcasts, flash mobs, citizen reporting … and whatever forms of “new media” are in the works even as we speak. Although each of these media forms engages in a different style of representation, and (sometimes) conforms to a different set of rules, their core skills involve the ability to generate tight, accurate, exciting stories at a moment’s notice. Students begin WR201 by learning how to write headlines, deks and summary leads using the inverted pyramid style. Once participants are able to fully command their basic writer’s toolbox, they progress to pitching and generating their own reviews, feature stories and profiles. Along the way, they learn to conduct interviews, assemble evidence packets, and utilize journalistic databases such as Lexis-Nexis to strengthen the factual muscle of their stories.
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