Announcement: MA Film and History at SOAS (University of London)

From H-Japan:

This MA programme provides students with the opportunity to acquire expert knowledge of film in historical context as a means of mastering transferable analytical skills and so prepare students for a variety of professional or research careers. The program can be adapted to meet a wide range of interests. Its bi-directional focus on the disciplines of film and history also provides students with a flexible series of modular units from which to choose. The core course examines the representation of history in film, and film in history by placing filmic representations of the societies and diasporas of/from/between Asia and Africa into historical context. Students will critically evaluate a range of issues relating to the reliability of
film as the grounds for making inferences about the national and transnational histories of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East with particular attention to the critical evaluation of film as a source for, and product of, the historian's accounts of the past.

Students who enroll for this MA will engage in interdisciplinary analysis of film and history alongside SOAS academic who regularly consult for the film and television industries. Students will also be simultaneous members of the History Department and Film and Media Studies Centres which host regular events including roundtables and panel discussions with leading academics and film makers. Internship opportunities also available to students registered on the MA Programme. MA graduates will obtain a nuanced and specialised understanding of interconnectedness of media and history that will serve a variety of career options in business, media, culture and heritage, academia, and the arts.

For further information regarding admissions and degree structure visit:
http://www.soas.ac.uk/mafilmandhistory/

"1st grad school for visually, aurally challenged to be launched"

From Japan Today, 10/31/09:

Japan’s first graduate school for students with visual or aural handicaps will be launched next April at the state-run Tsukuba University of Technology in Ibaraki Prefecture, it said Friday. It will be the world’s first graduate school for visually impaired students and the third for hearing-impaired ones, following such schools as Gallaudet University in the United States, according to the university.

Master’s degrees will be offered in two faculties—industrial technology for visually challenged students and health science courses for hearing-impaired students, which will focus on acupuncture and moxibustion as well as physical therapy. The university is planning to provide various learning aids, such as sign language, Braille and magnified letters to accommodate the students’ needs.

Good news, perhaps, but word to the wise: sign language is not a "learning aid." And why should blind and deaf people be limited to only two fields of study? This story is another classic example of the deficit model of deafness (and other so-called handicaps): let's help the disabled by giving them prescribed programs. Such good intentions ignore the basic human rights of minority peoples who use different languages and/or language delivery systems than the majority.