Class Description
NOTE: Students must be available for film screenings on Wednesdays from 4-7pm in 142 Dwinelle Hall. In times of post-truth politics, this course focuses on imposter tales, analyzing performances of social roles and national identities across multiple media and genres. Considering classic tales of “clothes make the man” from H. C. Andersen and F. Kafka, films such as Imitation of Life and Catch Me If You Can, as well as acts of posing and exposing on TV, YouTube, and digital social media platforms, students learn to think critically about rank and power, authenticity and artifice, staging and acting. Theories on the presentation of self and framing social interaction will guide our analyses. Epitomized by the word “selfie,” “selling the self” is an all-encompassing social practice that governs life and politics.
Course Catalog Description
This course will explore how experiences of migration, dislocation, or exile are visualized in cinema, and how processes of internationalization in film production and distribution intersect with the projection of a transnational global imagery. Some examples of transnational cinematic connections will be analyzed in historical perspective as well as contemporary examples of "migrant cinema." We will investigate how these films engage with debates about multiculturalism and assimilation/segregation of minorities, as scenarios of itinerancy and mobility are often intertwined with representations of ethnicity and gender.