HUM 365-01 - Studies in Film Theory (Spring)

4 credits Spring

Domestic Cinema–Feminist Film Criticism and Practice. This seminar is deeply interdisciplinary, engaging with several fields of inquiry. Specifically, we will study in detail three principle areas of research-film theory & history, feminism, and human geography. The central focus throughout will be the ways space, particularly domestic space, shapes constructions and embodiments of gender, race, nationality, and sexuality. While such investigations will familiarize students with both the theories of human geography and even some knowledge of architectural history, it will also demand in-depth study of a range of feminist knowledge. We will read in detail about the history of second wave feminism and its engagement with other theoretical methodologies, such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, postcolonialism, critical race studies, literary and cultural theory. We will engage these complex feminist topics through the academic discipline of film studies, in which feminist film theory specifically has played a central role in its history. The course begins by addressing representations of women in dominant cinema; however, we will spend most of the semester engaging with films by women, and the many forms global women’s cinema has taken over the years. Textbooks for the course are–Film and Theory: An Anthology; Feminist Film Theorists; Women’s Pictures: Feminism and Cinema; and Gender, Identity, & Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies. Representative directors include Deepa Mehta, Ulrike Ottinger, Ousmene Sembene, Maya Deren, Alfred Hitchcock, Todd Haynes, Tracey Moffat, Stanley Kubrick, Chantal Akerman, Mika Ninagawa, among others.

Prerequisite: Third-year standing and HUM 185.
Instructor: Geller