Media and film studies

American Teen Cinema: Coming of Age on Screen

Module code: P5034
Level 6
30 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Film, Seminar
Assessment modes: Coursework

In this module, you’ll have the opportunity to consider how coming of age is constructed on screen.

Topics you'll study include:

• constructions of identity, including gender, sexuality, race and class.
• popular memory and nostalgia
• the exploitation film and youth audiences
• the construction of a relatively new film genre and its scholarship.

Considering films such as Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955) and Clueless (Heckerling, 1995), this module aims to provide you with a critical overview of the genre. You'll also have the opportunity to consider the changing industry politics around teen audience and the shape of the genre as it is being formed.

Through weekly seminars and screenings, you will deepen your skills in independent research, and higher-level contextual and textual analysis.

Module learning outcomes

• Demonstrate a coherent and specialist knowledge of the teen movie
• Demonstrate understanding of key debates in scholarship related to the topic
• Demonstrate an understanding of the industrial and socio-cultural contexts in which these films were produced.
• Provide sophisticated critical analysis of a range of teen films, and effectively argue a position.
• Demonstrate appropriate capacity for individual research and skills in written communications.