Gender, Sexuality, and Film (373-0-21)
Topic
Gender, Space & Transnational Cinemas
Instructors
Rongyi Lin
Meeting Info
Harris Hall L28: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Topic: Gender, Space, and Transnational Cinemas.
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 housewife's kitchen, the madwoman's attic, the abandoned mall, and the apocalyptic forest, 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. 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).
Learning Objectives
1) become familiar with some frameworks in cultural studies for understanding gender, race, and nationality; 2) learn to critically analyze film and media texts
Teaching Method
Seminar-based discussion, screenings
Evaluation Method
Attendance, class participation, reading/screening responses, presentation, final paper or creative project
Class Materials (Required)
All course materials will be provided on Canvas.
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area