Politics of Chinese Cinemas

Catalog description

Focusing on films produced since 1949, this course explores how “Chinese cinema” delimits a field of political contest, a global arena for antagonism over the meaning of revolution, the definition of art, the reach of propaganda, the articulation of gender, and the boundaries of culture. We begin with an examination of cinema in the Maoist PRC, moving on to a discussion of China’s international Cold War presence, and finally to contemporary themes of independent film production, women’s and queer cinema, and the place of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the shadow of the PRC’s “rise.”