History of Sinophone World Cinema II

Catalog description

The course offers a historical survey of Chinese-language cinema from the emergence of the new waves in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China in the 1970s-1980s to the more recent formations around the turn of the new century. The distinctiveness of the three important Chinese cinemas and their increasing convergences after the Hong Kong handover in 1997, and under the impact of globalization, offer ideal laboratories for reconsidering the premises and usefulness of the concepts of national and transnational cinema. Along the same axis, we will also probe questions of cultural nationalism, neo-regionalism, a persistent cold war culture within the trans-Asian context, and the tension between the state's cultural policy and film industry, commercial cinema, and art or independent cinema. Given the massive transformations in media technology and industrial organization in the last two decades, we will also consider the ramifications of new media for film and screen culture, including new documentary movements, amateur and activist film/video practices, and queer and feminist cinema.