History of World Cinema III: Queer Cinema around the World

Provides an overview of cinema from around the world since 1960, highlighting the cultural, political, and economic forces that have shaped various film movements over the last six decades. We study key film movements and national cinemas towards developing a formal, historical, theoretical appreciation of a variety of commercial and art film traditions. Specific topics may vary by term/year/instructor. This term's topic, Queer Cinema around the World, studies the relationship of gender, sexuality, and cinematic representation trans-regionally and transnationally. Moving beyond the Euro-American focus of gender and sexuality studies and queer cinema courses, this course will foster an examination of queerness, sexual minorities, same-sex desire, LGBTQI+ rights, censorship, precarity, and hopefulness in relation to race, nationalism, religion, and region. Through film and video from Kenya, Hong Kong, India, The Dominican Republic, South Korea, Spain, Palestine, Argentina, the US (Black, indigenous cinemas, for instance), South Africa, Colombia etc., this course will engage with a range of queer cinematic forms and queer spectatorial practices in different parts of the world.