​ABOUT

Prof. ​Sam Cumming & Prof. Gabriel Greenberg
PHILO 287 Seminar: Philosophy of Language • Winter 2020 • UCLA
When: Th 3:30-6
Where: Dodd Hall 325

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SYLLABUS

Seminar syllabus.

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1. Introduction to film narrative
January 9 • SC/GG

​Handout by GG
Handout by SC
Slides by SC

Reading: ​

• Bordwell, Thompson, J. Smith, Film Art (2017, 11th edition)
  • Ch. 1: pp. 9-12 (Mechanics of the movies)
  • Ch. 1: pp. 17-26 (Film production)
  • Ch. 4: pp. 143-148 (Screen space, scene space)
  • Ch. 5: pp. 168-178, 181-185, 187-194 (Perspective, framing, camera position)
  • Ch. 6: pp. 216-237 (Editing)
• Tim Smith, "The Attentional Theory of Cinematic Continuity" (2012)
  • pp. 4-16 (Editing, change blindness, and continuity)

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Film clips:

• Mary Jane's Mishap (George Albert Smith, 1903)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCm51fg5hpk 
• The Big Swallow (James Williamson, 1901)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5XJjvlydck
• Life of an American Fireman [3.44] (Edwin Porter, 1903)
  https://youtu.be/nyjceskGZIc?t=224
• Jump cuts in Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fcRj0SXYh8 
• The Irishman: 1:40:00, 1.42:20, 1.59:35

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2. Discourse coherence
January 16 • SC

Handout

Reading: 

• Hobbs, Literature and Cognition, Ch. 5
• ​McCloud, Understanding Comics, Ch. 3

Film clips:

• The Last of the Mohicans (1992) [Fight scene 0:23]
  https://youtu.be/Dhrg6SH9yvE?t=23 
• ​Number, Please (1920) [2:49]
  https://youtu.be/pbYPUxNT-qM?t=169
• ​Salvation Army Lass (1909) [9:41]
  https://vimeo.com/173678596​

Extra:

• Fun: Leff, "How do we understand stories?" (short film)
• Metz, Film Language, Ch. 5, pp. 124-133
• Smith, "The Attentional Theory of Cinematic Continuity," Projections
• Knott and Dale, "Using linguistic phenomena to motivate a set of coherence relations," Discourse Processes
• Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Screen

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3. Film space
January 23 • GG

​Handout

​Reading: 

• Greenberg, "The Structure of Visual Content" (MS), Section 1-4
• Klatsky, "Allocentric and Egocentric Spatial Representation" (1998), Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Waller and Nadel, "Frameworks for Understanding Spatial Thought" (2013) from Handbook of Spatial Cognition

Extra:

• Burgess, "Spatial memory: how egocentric and allocentric combine" (2006), TRENDS in Cognitive Science
• Levin and Wang, "Spatial Representation in Cognitive Science and Film" (2009), Projections​
• Warren, "Wormholes in virtual space: From cognitive maps to cognitive graphs" (2017)
• Warren, "Non-Euclidean navigation" (2019)

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NO CLASS 
January 30

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4. Viewpoint constraints
February 6​ • GG

Handout

​Reading:  

• Cumming, Greenberg, and Kelly, "Conventions of Viewpoint Coherence in Film"
  • watch: Leff, "Spatial Coherence in Film" (short film)

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​5. Conventions, focal points, and pragmatics
February 13 • SC

​Handout

Reading: 

• Bordwell, "Convention, construction, and cinematic vision"
  
• Lepore and Stone, Imagination and Convention, Chs. 2.1; 14.1-14.3

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Fun: Bordwell, "Who Blinked First?"

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6. Point of view
February 20 • SC

​Handout
Slides
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Reading: 

• ​Cumming et al., "Showing Seeing in Film"

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Extra: 

• Abusch and Rooth, "The formal semantics of free perception in pictorial narratives"
• Schlenker, "What is super semantics?", pp. 406-413

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7. Time
February 27 • SC

​Handout

Reading: 

• ​Abusch, "Temporal Succession and Aspectual Type in Visual Narrative"

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Extra: 

• Lepore and Stone, Imagination and Convention, Ch. 7
• Webber, "Tense as Discourse Anaphor" ​

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8. Dynamic update
​March 5​ • GG

​Handout

Reading: 

• Lepore and Stone, Imagination and Convention, 14.4
  
• Maier and Bimpikou, "Shifting Perspectives in Pictorial Narratives"

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Extra:

• ​Wildfleur (2014), Film Discourse Interpretation

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9. Non-Western visual narrative
​March 12​​ • GG

Handout

Reading: 

• Munn, Walbiri Iconography (1973), Ch. 3: "The Sand Story"
• Wilkins, "Alternative representations of space: Arrernte narratives in sand" (1997)

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10. Student presentations
​[Week of March 16]

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