Film Studies Daily Log

Tuesday, March 18
Mr. Potratz distributed copies of Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.
HW due Thursday: Read at least the first five chapters of Alice.

We discussed further Mark Twain's 19th-century American view on medieval society, especially his view of the church and how it used religion to perpetuate a class system of oppression and gross inequality. Mr. Potratz talked briefly about Arthurian literature in Victorian England (Tennyson's Idylls of the King) and its use to wrap the monarchy and the state in a heroic, mythic haze).

We then watched more of Excalibur.

Monday, March 17
Students took a quiz over the two handouts by Mark Twain, and we graded the quiz.
We then took off on a tangent starting from Twain's reference to "dudes and dudesses" and including the development of that word, the way language develops in general, and important differences between spoken and written language.

Friday, March 14
Mr. Potratz was absent. Students watched part of the 1983 film Excalibur, based on Mallory's Morte D'Arthur.