World Cinema: polycentric, polymorphic, or polyvalent

As we enter the last stretch before the final, I wanted to give you a guide to how to study for the exam. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the class: theoretical ground and empirical detail. It’s a lot to navigate. Here’s how to make the best use of the last week before the final.

The final exam is a single essay question. It will ask you about the concepts of the polycentric, polymorphic, and polyvalent in world cinema. You should be able to show your understanding of those concepts by coming up with examples from the course.

Do you need a refresher on the polycentric, polymorphic, and polyvalent? Chapter 1 of the textbook is worth reviewing in full. Pages 23-30 deal with these concepts directly. I didn’t assign the book’s introduction because it’s written for scholars and instructors, but if you want further elaboration, you can check out pages 5-11.

Once you have a sense for what those terms mean and why those perspectives are important, look for ways that they can be applied. A starting point might be to check out the index of the textbook, at the top of page 444. From there, you can go to moments in the book where the authors use those concepts to explore other themes. This should strengthen your notion of what these three terms mean and how they can be applied. You should also review the lectures. In addition to consulting with your notes, you can review my PowerPoint slides. I’ve gone ahead and posted all of my slides from Week 1 to Week 15 on the “PowerPoint Slides” section of Blackboard. These slides do not contain audio or video, but at least give you a skeletal way of recalling all of the topics discussed. Don’t just look for the moments where the polycentric, polymorphic, or polyvalent are explicitly mentioned; you should by now be able to apply those terms in describing what’s happening in different contexts.

You should also review the films, though that is not as important as reviewing the readings, lectures, and discussions. I don’t recommend you re-watch all of the films, but if there are any you missed, you might want to watch them now. Of the pre-midterm films, Om Shanti Om and Udaan are on Netflix. Toni Erdmann is available for rent online. Basically, how might the films illustrate polycentric, polymorphic, and polyvalent phenomena? And by “phenomena,” I am referring to the many themes/topics we covered in the class: film festivals, blockbusters, co-productions, audiences, etc.

The exam will be open-book and open-note. That means you can refer to the textbook, any Blackboard slides, or notes you’ve taken in the course. You can re-watch moments in films; you could even take frame grabs if they directly enhance your argument. You just can’t work with anybody else in writing the essay. In your essay, if you do refer to the textbook or other assigned readings, please cite the text appropriately via footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations.

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