Special Topics in Comparative Literature (488-0-20)

Topic

Counter Cinema & the Aesthetic of Revolution

Instructors

Lakshmi Padmanabhan

Meeting Info

Block Pick-Laudati Auditorium: Tues 1:00PM - 2:50PM
Annie May Swift Hall 110: Tues 3:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Counter Cinema & the Aesthetics of Revolution

This class surveys the range of theoretical debates within film and visual art on the aesthetics of "counter-cinemas" or practices of filmmaking that engage with revolutionary politics as an aesthetic problem. Topics addressed will include the work of the Soviet avant-garde, surrealism, social documentary filmmaking, indigenous and first-nations filmmaking, Black cinema in the US, films of the New Left post-'68, anticolonial and Third Cinema movements. Readings will draw on a range of thinkers and debates within film theory, art history, and literary theory, particularly focusing on Marxist aesthetic criticism and its limits.