Alongside a number of films, the course will use Jonathan Perry's book, Now Playing: Learning World History through Film.
Alongside a number of films, the course will use Jonathan Perry's book, Now Playing: Learning World History through Film.
Homepage News Modern World History course will now feature cinematic sources

Modern World History course will now feature cinematic sources

One of the History department’s quintessential courses, History 262 (The Modern World), will receive a new twist this spring, as Professor Ross Doughty begins using films as major course texts. 

Professor Doughty, a tirelessly inventive teacher, will assign Jonathan Perry’s Now Playing: Learning World History Through Film, and movies will be used both as out-of-class assignments for discussion and as sources for short papers. Some of the films are classics, such as Kagemusha, Battleship Potempkin, and The Battle of Algiers, while others are more typical Hollywood treatments or foreign films, such as Gallipoli, Danton, or Jefferson in Paris. 

Doughty notes that while he’s used movies and assigned film reviews in his 300-level courses, such as “Warfare & Society” and “Nazi Germany and the Holocaust,” the new Perry text is specifically designed to be used as an accompaniment to the main course text, Patterns of World History, and offers students a different and highly engaging approach than the usual 100 or 200 level survey course. In addition, students will benefit from a significant price break on the four principal textbooks for the course, which will be prepackaged together for the single price of $114.95.

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