Studies in Media Topics (298-0-20)

Topic

Gender, Space & Transnational Cinemas

Instructors

Rongyi Lin

Meeting Info

Harris Hall L28: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

Is the mall the best place to hide during a zombie apocalypse? What might a vengeful spirit wandering the city have to do with postcolonial futures? What forms of queer relationality are generated on the verge of environmental collapse and the end of capitalism? This course explores the relationship between gender and space in both the representations and sociocultural histories of film and media in a transnational context. We will begin by tracing the cinema's indispensable role in constituting women's mobility and spectatorship in urban space in the early 20th century Western metropolis, and consider the continued relevance and limitation of this framework for understanding gender and spatiality in contemporary media cultures. Through a series of dwellings, including the kitchen, the madwoman's attic, the abandoned mall, and modern skyscrapers submerged in rain, we will interrogate the dynamics of labor and play, quotidian and fantastic, subjectivity and identification by putting questions of gender and sexuality to the intersectional concerns of race, class, and nationality.

Class Materials (Required)

Potential texts include: Jeanne Dielman (Chantal Akerman, 1974), Rouge (Stanley Kwan, 1987), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014), Severance (Ling Ma, 2018), Weathering with You (Makoto Shinkai, 2019).