The class goal is for students to gain tools for a critical reading of films as instruments of ideology and culture. They are vehicles of culture providing us with a common vocabulary for our shared histories and relationships. Beyond the notion of films as simply entertaining or escapist, we will look at how popular films function in the ideology of culture and in the politics of race and ethnicity in society and history. Similarly, we will examine how film practices, which accompanied political movements, opens up questions about strategies for social change and relations. Theoretical texts in popular culture, feminist, film, and performance studies will provide frameworks for thinking about identity formation, and critical spectatorship, authorship and positioning.
Lectures also involve active class discussion and in-class screenings.