English 2100 Books and Movies

Spring Semester 2019

I am excited about teaching the amazing books and movies that we will be working with this semester, and I believe that you will be, too! But before we get started, I want to give you some GUIDANCE on how to gain proper access to materials we will be studying. And once you have a clear sense of which versions are appropriate, you can start ordering your books and movies now so that you don’t miss out on an important graded assignment due to lack of materials.

Required Versions of Texts and Movies

First of all, ALL of the works that I list below are REQUIRED texts, which means that you will not succeed in class if you do not have proper access to them. You might have seen the Matrix movies in the past, for example, but you cannot rely on that past experience to be able to engage in the conversations and exercises we will be creating together this semester.

Second, in some cases I require that you work with SPECIFIC EDITIONS or DVD COLLECTIONS that contain materials not available through other means. So I have written the following comments to guide you as you seek the least expensive but proper versions of our works.

Where to Get Access to Your Books and Movies

Hard copies of all of the books and movies are available on Amazon and will likely be cheaper there than at other stores, BUT you can find some (though not all) of them on movie streaming channels such as Netflix, Cinemax, or Hulu. So if you have access to any of these online movie services, you can get access to a few of our movies “for free” (meaning at no extra cost beyond what you might already pay in subscription fees—which might be paid for by your families already!).

BOOKS

We are only using three books this semester (or technically five, since our graphic novel comes in three volumes), but each one is critical for your ability to complete our class assignments, so I strongly suggest that you get both physical AND online versions of each book. All prices and venues are accurate at least as of this date, December 5, 2018. Things might change as time passes.

Whether you choose a hard copy or a kindle version is up to you. While I prefer hard copies so that I can hold the book in my hands and underline directly on its pages, online or downloaded versions provide you with the ability to copy and paste text directly from the book, saving you unnecessary typing time. In the end, I myself like to have both hard copies and digital copies for varying reasons.

In a face-to-face class, I would ask you to have hard copies because finding specific pages and passages in digital copies can take some time. But in our online class, this time element is not important.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The key book for framing our understanding and discussions of the movies we see this semester is Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. You will see that the hard back copy is actually cheaper than the paperback on Amazon (right now $15.60 vs. $17.98). Any used copy will do as well. And if you type “Hero with a Thousand Faces online” into Google, you will come up with digital versions that you can use for copy-and-paste functions.

If you don’t already know about it, you should bookmark the URL for the online used book site, Bookfinder4u.com. You not only will find the cheapest available used copies here but can also have shipping costs included in the total price, which can often make a big difference.

Black Panther (Graphic Novels)

We will read the three-volume graphic novel series, Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet (Black Panther volumes 1-3), by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The total cost for paperback volumes is $31.33 at this moment. The total Kindle cost is currently $26.97. And if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can download the first volume for free, leaving a balance of $17.98 for all three kindle volumes. Finally, if you also happen to be a subscriber to Amazon’s Comixology comic book service, your total would be $15.28—but given the $5.99 monthly fee, I wouldn’t sign up for this just for our class. There are digital versions available online if you know how to search for them and download the necessary application to display them.

Neuromancer

William Gibson’s book Neuromancer is available on Amazon. The hardback copy is priced the same as the paperback. You can also find used copies. While there are digital text versions online, I still recommend that you get both the hard copy and the digital versions.

Movies

IMPORTANT! Do NOT simply rent online versions of any of our movies. You will need to watch them a few different times and be able to refer to specific scenes in the films, and this won’t be possible with a one-time rental. So you will need to BUY the recommended DVD (or Blu-Ray, of course) versions OR buy the online streaming versions OR subscribe to a movie service that allows you to watch the same movie several times and be able to scroll through the films in order to find your way to different scenes and passages. As you will see, I am drawing mostly from Amazon for prices and version availability. You can occasionally find a good deal for used movies on eBay, but be sure that the versions match my descriptions below.

I list our movies chronologically in order in terms of when we will use them in class.

Pan’s Labyrinth

While any version of Pan’s Labyrinth will do, I recommend the Criterion Collection version, which includes important interviews with the director. For some reason, at the time of this writing the Blu-Ray version ($22.97) is cheaper than the DVD version ($29.95). The simple DVD version right now is $9.99, but there’s a good chance you’ll want access to the materials in the Criterion version. Streaming versions are $12.99. UPDATE: As of now (1-6-19) Pan’s Labyrinth is available for free to Netflix subscribers.

Avatar (James Cameron)

I will be providing you with intensive lecture videos that I have created in which I discuss in depth certain themes and aspects of the film that I want us to focus on. This means that the specific version of Avatar is not critical, although the three-disk DVD version provides you with an extended director’s version of the movie as well as important background documentary features.

If you prefer to purchase a streaming version, the original movie version is available on Hulu as well as on Cinemax. Be sure to BUY the streamed movie rather than rent it because you will have to watch it several times and refer in detail to specific scenes in the film.

Black Panther (film)

The 2018 Black Panther Marvel movie is available in various formats on Amazon as well as (at least the time of this writing) for free with your Netflix subscription.

The Ultimate Matrix Collection

IMPORTANT! This specific multi-disk version of the Wachowskis’ Matrix movies (which comes in 6-disk, 7-disk, and 10-disk collections, for some reason) is REQUIRED, so please don’t just count on having copies of the original three trilogy movies for our purposes. This Ultimate Collection contains two more very important movies—Animatrix and Return to Source: Philosophy and the Matrix—as well as other disks containing key background information about the movie series. (The 4-disk collection entitled The Matrix Collection contains the trilogy, Animatrix, and some important extra features but not Return to Source. A low quality version of Return to Source currently exists online. You can squeak by with this option, but you might miss out on some key features.) Your final paper will involve material from ALL of these primary disks, so really, copies of just the individual movies will not do. The Ultimate Matrix Collection is available in different formats and sold by different sellers on Amazon. You can get good deals on eBay for used copies. But in any case, for full access to these features, be sure that the name of the collected disks is THE ULTIMATE MATRIX COLLECTION!