A Global History of Sexuality Through Cinema

Catalog description

What do films teach us about sex and sexuality? How do they shape our understanding of intimacy, gendered and racialized identity, and the desiring body? This course examines the history of sexuality as it unfolds through global cinema. Across eight weeks and eight films drawn from different cultural and historical contexts, students will explore how cinema not only reflects but also produces meanings around sex, gender, desire, and power. The course introduces students to the fundamentals of film form and trains them in close cinematic analysis, with attention to elements such as sound, montage, performance, and visual style. At the same time, students will engage key concepts from Sexuality Studies in order to understand how norms of pleasure, intimacy, and embodiment shift across time and place. Assignments include in-class close reading exercises, discussion-based engagement with theoretical ideas, a short midterm project, and a final project that may take either an analytical or creative form. No prior coursework is required. By the end of the quarter, students will have developed not only a deeper understanding of the politics and aesthetics of sexuality but also a more nuanced eye for how cinema gives shape to desire, and to the histories we inherit through it.