This course is designed to facilitate an integration of the print, film and digital materials under consideration with experiences and ideas that come out of students’ most immediate personal and professional contexts. While I (Prof. Hess) will provide substantive class presentations that direct our explorations and structure our collaboration, it is up to each student to prepare appropriately for our work together, and to engage in respectful and constructive dialogue. Towards that end, class participation is vital, and requires not only physical presence, but diligent and thoughtful preparation. If you have any learning challenges that require accommodation or intervention, I invite you to sit down with me early in the term so that we can take appropriate steps to support your learning.

The following assignments are required for successful completion of the course. If any of these assignments pose insurmountable challenges, please contact me as soon as you discern the problem so that we can arrange for appropriate alternatives.

1. Write a blog and read other blogs

Each student must keep a weblog for the duration of the course, and read every other student’s blog from the course (preferably using an RSS reader of some sort). There are two primary goals for this blog. First, you need to pick a substantial piece of film or tv pop culture [a season’s worth of a tv show, a film series (eg. the Star Wars films), five or more films by the same director, etc.)], and over the course of the term blog about your theological engagement with that chunk of pop culture. Your posts on this element of the course should occur at least twice a week. We’ll talk more about what constitutes a “post” during our first session. Your choice of pop culture “oeuvre” has to be approved by me, but you’ll have wide latitude in choice. Perhaps the key element should be something that either currently has wide cultural currency, or has had such in the past.

The second element of this assignment is that you will experiment with finding a “voice” that feels comfortable for you in this medium and that invites comments. For this part of the assignment you can blog about whatever you’d like, but you will be evaluated based on whether any (or how many) of your posts attract comments. While your colleague students from the class are of course free to comment, you should consider that they have their own posts to write, and try to write in a way or on topics that invite comments from other people.

2. Create one short music/still image presentation

This is really an assignment that can be used to build toward the next assignment. Most people will use a program like Keynote or PowerPoint to do this, but you’re welcome to use whatever software you prefer. The goal is to practice telling a story. Perhaps the most economical way to do this is to begin to work on your video autobiographical piece, using this assignment. These presentations should be about the length of one standard pop song, that is roughly between 3 and 5 minutes long, but can certainly use music without lyrics, or mix multiple pieces of music together. Part of the learning goal is to experiment with combining images and music, and to learn what impact such juxtaposition has on telling a story. This piece will be due in class on March 10th.

3. Create two short multi-media pieces

These pieces may be done in a variety of ways, but their final form must be submitted in video format; at least one must be appropriate for publishing on the www.feautor.org site (and I would urge you to consider doing so). More details will be forthcoming in class, but the first of these will tell a story from your own autobiography and be due in class on March 31st, and the second one will tell a story of Redeemer Lutheran church in north Minneapolis and be due in class on May 5th.