Tracing the evolution of documentary form and style, this course explores issues related to identity, social justice, historical memory, among other topics. In a seminar format, students watch, discuss, and write about major films. Students may make their own documentaries as final projects.
We will examine the career and legacy of Alfred Hitchcock, "master of suspense" and an indelible figure in film/media history: analyze major films and television programs he directed; survey the evolution of "Hitchcock" as a controversial brand; and consider the broad international influence of Hitchcock, especially regarding film form and style but also as a topic of film theory and criticism.
This course takes students on a journey, not to an actual place per se in France, but rather through a lived experience, known as "Afro/Black Paris." Paris, a historical site of freedom from racial enslavement, has long been a contested home and homeland for Africans and their descendants, that is, diverse people racialized as black whose presence in Paris results from colonization, exile, expatriation, and im/migration, including African Americans. The City of Light is arguably one of the most beautiful and exciting destinations in the world. However, all that glitters is not gold. Matters of race and anti-blackness co-exist with a variety of myths, narratives, and representations of Paris and France as color-blind and race-free. Through French film, students will explore these and related issues and thereby gain a broader understanding of pressing social questions among them anti-racism, belonging, inequality, racism, and their intersections. This course follows a lecture discussion format.
