Unit rationale, description and aim
This is a unit in philosophical and applied aesthetics, with a particular focus on film. It is concerned both with the nature of aesthetic experience and the arts, as well as the way in which film (and other modes of artistic expression) shape or reflect experience, structure perception, and reveal important truths about human life and its larger context. In exploring influential perspectives regarding those debates, students are required to develop reasoned positions of their own. In this way, the unit aims both to facilitate students' understanding of some key theories and debates in the philosophy of religion, as well as to enhance their skills in critical analysis.
Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Identify and accurately explain some of the centra...
Learning Outcome 01
Critically analyse selected contemporary debates i...
Learning Outcome 02
Demonstrate appropriate skills in philosophical re...
Learning Outcome 03
Content
Topics will include:
- the nature of aesthetic experience;
- theories of the nature of art;
- beauty, sublimity, and art;
- film as shaping and/or reflecting aesthetic experience
- filmic techniques as structuring perception
In addition, topics such as the following may also be included:
- the arts as philosophy
- the value and meaning of art;
- the relationship of art to morality, politics and religion.
- film as rendering the invisible, visible.
- genres of art and their significance;
- artistic vision and truth.
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment strategy for this unit has been designed to examine students’ understanding of the philosophical issues and theories under consideration, as well as their ability to critically analyse those issues and theories. It does so through a series of three graduated assessment tasks. The first two tasks prepare students for the third and principal task of writing an extended research essay. The two structured written tasks require students to demonstrate an understanding of the key concepts and theories, and increasingly to engage critically with some key texts in the field. The research essay requires students to research an area of the unit in further detail, and to develop and defend a coherent position of their own in a formally structured argumentative essay.
Overview of assessments
Structured written task 1 Requires students to de...
Structured written task 1
Requires students to demonstrate understanding of key concepts and analyse key text/s in the philosophy of religion
20%
Structured written task 2 Requires students to cr...
Structured written task 2
Requires students to critically analyse key text/s in the philosophy of religion
30%
Research Essay Requires students to further resea...
Research Essay
Requires students to further research and analyse an important issue in the philosophy of religion, and argue for a coherent position.
50%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
This unit involves 150 hours of focused learning, or the equivalent of 10 hours per week for 15 weeks. The total includes formally structured learning activities such as lectures, tutorials and online learning. The remaining hours typically involve reading, research, and the preparation of tasks for assessment.
The unit has been designed as a blend of project learning along with direct instruction within a collaborative context. The direct instruction ensures that students develop a grounding in understanding basic problems, concepts and arguments in philosophical aesthetics, film and the arts (LO1). The project learning enables the students to apply those concepts and theories critically and reflectively to problems in the field, and this feeds into the achievement of the other aim of the unit concerning the development of philosophical skills of analysis, interpretation and argumentation (LO 2-3). The collaborative context of the unit is focused especially on the weekly tutorial, during which the emphasis is on small group discussion of the weekly readings. Students engage in class discussions, provide written critiques of significant theories, and present their reasoned position on matters at issue, after being introduced to them through readings and lectures.