Documentary Form and Practice

Documentary as a way of constructing arguments about reality — not just "filming what's there," but choosing a question, finding sources, and shaping evidence into a story that makes a claim. The semester is built around a single historical case (the 18 March 1915 Dardanelles attack), which you investigate through four staged research tasks plus a final project, presenting each one to the class so the seminar functions as much as a workshop as a lecture. Think of it as the practical counterpart to film theory and history courses: you read documentary traditions and theory, but you spend most of your time actually doing the research-and-framing work that separates documentary from fiction or journalism.