This assessment requires you to write a critical report on two pieces of secondary academic reading. One of these pieces should be a piece of reading from the required seminar reading (i.e. from the Core seminar readings in the Module Handbook/ Essential reading section of the library electronic reading list). The other reading should be from the longer recommended reading lists in the Module Handbook. The two pieces should be from different weeks of the course. For example, if you want to use an article we read on Ong Bak, you should find another article that is NOT from the week on Ong Bak. In the assessment, you should summarise and compare the main argument(s) of the two pieces of reading you have selected. If a reading is particularly long, or addresses various different questions or case studies, you might wish to focus on a specific area. In addition, you should think critically about how the arguments of the two pieces engage with one another. Does the argument from your second reading support the argument made in the first? Does it challenge it? How and why? A key point to consider is what you are comparing when you compare these arguments. Is it questions of film form? Of film production? Of ways of framing the popular? Of ways in which films have circulatedinside/outside Asia, through different mechanisms of distribution or exhibition? These are just some examples from a range of possibilities. You can think about this assessment as a way of preparing for your final essay, or you can treat it as a stand-alone assessment in its own right. You cannot cut and paste material from this assessment directly into your final essay. However, you can re-use relevant readings and carry over ideas, provided you reword them as appropriate.
