Teaching and Learning

Student work on the BDC

We are pleased to publish online the following three essays by students using the collections.

Senior Lecturer in Film Studies Helen Hanson explains more:

These online essays were written by final year students as part of their assessed work for a module that I teach in the Dept of English. The module: Film and Literature: Textual Transformations covers the interrelationships between literature and film, by looking at a range of films such as Great Expectations adapted by David Lean in 1946 and by Alfonso Cuaron in 1998, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 adaptation of Rebecca, Laurence’s Olivier’s 1945 version of Henry V and Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996).

As a tutor I try to get students to move away from an approach of simply comparing book and film by encouraging them to think about howstories are told by different media, literary and filmic style, and by asking them to consider how a particular adaptation can be understood in relation to its production within the film industry - including its production history and marketing.

The collections of the Bill Douglas Centre are used by students studying the Film and Literature module. Artefacts such as film pressbooks, posters, fan magazines, cigarette cards, biographies of directors and stars all give students new, and richer,ways of thinking about the relationships between literature and film, and the artefacts prompt a range of questions which allow them to think more deeply and in a holistic way about literature's transformation on screen.

The essays posted are three excellent examples of student work that engages with material culture artefacts. The students were asked to select a range of artefacts from the collection, and to write about how the artefacts illuminate the history or contexts of a particular adaptation. All three essays show the students using the BDC museum to research and interpret their chosen adaptation. In the process of producing their essays, these students have opened up the museum and made its holdings meaningful for their own study, and for other visitors to the BDC.

Taking part in this kind of exercise develops students’ research and writing skills, it exploits collections unique to the University of Exeter, and provides an entertaining way for visitors to the website to access the BDC’s collections. I hope you enjoy reading them.

Dr Helen Hanson

Senior Lecturer in Film

Dept of English

Contact Helen Hanson:

http://www.sall.ex.ac.uk/english/staff-profiles/helen-hanson.html

More information about the Film and Literature module:

http://www.sall.ex.ac.uk/english/content/view/1033/5/

Degree Courses and other Research Opportunities

The Bill Douglas Centre is a division of Academic Services. However, it also has close links with the School of Arts, Languages and Literatures (SALL) and, within this, the departments of English and Modern Languages, both of which offer a variety of courses in film studies. The Department of English runs a combined BA degree in English and Film. The Department of Modern Languages runs several combined honours courses in film with languages and oversees the modular degree in Film Studies, which is organised jointly by English and Modern Languages.

Cinema History forms a major named component of the Masters Programme in English Studies. This programme also includes modules in critical theory and creative writing, offering a number of different subject combinations for students interested in the study of moving image culture. Modern Languages runs an MA in European Film Studies.

Exeter's interdisciplinary research environment has proven remarkably productive with many successful PhD candidates now working full time in academic and research posts. Those following the PhD in Film by Practice have produced innovative and exciting work exhibited at festivals and galleries (including the Tate Britain and Baltic) in the UK and abroad.

Further information and contact details for staff and programmes can be found on the the SALL's Film Studies pages at www.sall.ex.ac.uk/film.

The Bill Douglas Centre also organises Screen Studies South West , a network of people and organisations researching the moving image in the South West region.

Article Archive

Duncan Petrie, 'The Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture: A Report for Screen'

Alex Rankin, 'The History of Cinema Exhibition in Exeter 1895–1918' (MA dissertation)

Publications

The University of Exeter Press publishes a wide range of books connected to the history of cinema and pre-cinema. This includes the series 'Exeter Studies in Film History', edited by Richard Maltby and Duncan Petrie. View more details of all available books.

Resources for Schools

The Centre provides worksheets for use in the Museum for Key Stages 1 to 3. The displays in the galleries can be used for projects in both 19th- and 20th-Century history, as well as in science projects on subjects such as light, colour and movement. Teachers are recommended to contact the Curator to find out what opportunities are available.