Film, Race and Representation

Catalog description

This course examines filmic representations of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and corresponding political, cultural, and social ideologies. Our aim will be to understand dominant and subversive storytelling techniques in films that focus on racialized subjects, sexual identity and class privilege in the US. The goal is to illuminate how meanings of race are constructed and can be read through filmic aspects. We will focus on contemporary films by diverse filmmakers paying particular attention to matters of film authorship, narrative and rhetorical strategy, and technologies of cinema. Our analysis will illuminate how operations of power function filmically to produce both conventional and transgressive gazes. Screenings include work by and about people of color in both historical and contemporary contexts.