| Course Title: Advanced Courses in History and Theory: 'Dangerous Movies' |
| Start Date: 09/09/2026 End Date: 12/22/2026 |
| Term: Fall Semester 2026 |
| Description: Kathyrn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (2012), a thriller about the CIA's hunt to track down Osama bin Laden, was highly praised by critics, but it was also widely criticized for appearing to promote torture. Movies can be morally dangerous, seemingly endorsing immoral or discriminatory ideals, or romanticizing immoral characters and behavior. And of course movies seem to have the power to promote virtue and goodness as well. In this course, we evaluate the arguments given for treating movies as moral or immoral, and we examine whether and how our moral evaluations of movies should affect our judgments of these movies. When, if ever, are movies immoral? Should movies ever be censored? Should we withhold praise from morally objectionable movies? |
| Distribution(s): I - Humanities , WI - Writing-Intensive , TP - Topics Course |
| Academic Level Of Course: Undergraduate | Credits:4.00 |
| Faculty | Phone | Email address |
| James Harold | 413-538-2366 | jharold@mtholyoke.edu |
| Meeting Dates | Method | Meeting days | Meeting times | Building name | Room | Frequency |
| 09/09/2026 - 12/22/2026 | Seminar | Tuesday and Thursday | 03:15PM - 04:30PM | TBA | TBA | Weekly |
| Requisite Courses | ||
| Prereq: 8 credits from Philosophy. | Take previously | Required |
| Comments |
| Additional Comments |
| There will be film screenings in addition to the regular class meeting times |
| Course Tags | ||
| PHIL0002 | PHIL-ET: Ethics and Value Theory | This course has been approved to count towards the Philosophy major in the Ethics and Value Theory area. |
| NOPRI0001 | Used to identify non-primary sides of crosslisted courses for Workday conversion |
| Cross-listed Sections |
| PHIL-375PF-01 Dangerous Movies |
| FMT-330PF-01 Dangerous Movies |
| Course Availability | ||||
| Section status: Open | Capacity: 18 | Enrollment: 0 | Available: 18 | Waitlist: 0 |
BOOK INFORMATION
| Book List | Required | Publisher Full Price |
| To be determined. |
| Additional Book Comments |
| This is NOT the complete book list for this class. |