IGS/SCT 530L Term 1
STUDIES IN IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES:
Instructor: JOHN LEBLANC
THIRD WORLD CINEMA
Course Description:
A key force in the determination of Third World identities has been the development of a Third World cinema. This cinema, to varying degrees, has attempted to establish Third World difference through resistance to strategies of Hollywood spectacle and European auteurism, as theorized in the evolving concept of Third Cinema. This course will explore and interrogate these notions of Third World cinema and Third Cinema by examining a variety of feature films chosen from such regions as Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, India, China, and South East Asia. The discussion will focus on issues of race, gender, class, nation, conditions of production and consumption, genre, and aesthetics in relation to the larger issue of Third World identity.
Assignments:
Seminar Presentation : Each student will lead the discussion of one film from the course syllabus. The outline and content of the presentation will be handed in – Value : 40%
Term Paper : An expansion of the seminar presentation. At least 3,500 words in length. Value : 60%
Course Syllabus:
Week One – Identifying Third Cinema
Reading – Paul Willemen – “The Third Cinema Question: Notes and Reflections” (1989). In Pines and Willemen..
- Glauber Roca – “The Aesthetics of Hunger” (1965). In Chanan.
- Solanas and Getino - “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969). In Chanan
- Julio Garcia Espinosa – “For an Imperfect Cinema” (1970). In Chanan.
Viewing – Solanas and Getino - The Hour of the Furnaces (Argentina -1968)
Week Two – Theorizing Third Cinema
Reading – Teshome Gabriel – “Towards a Critical Theory of Third World Films” (1987). In Pines and Willemen.
Viewing – Ousmane Sembene – Xala (Senegal - 1974)
Week Three – Rethinking Third Cinema
Reading – Anthony R. Guneratne “Introduction: rethinking Third Cinema” (2003). In Guneratne and Dissanayake.
- Robert Stam – “Beyond Third Cinema: the aesthetics of hybridity” (2003). In Guneratne and Dissanayake.
Viewing – Mani Ratnam – Bombay (India – 1995)
Week Four – Women Filmmakers and Third Cinema
Reading – Robin and Jaffe – “Introduction to Redirecting the Gaze ” (1999). In Robin and Jaffe.
- Ella Shohat – “Gender, Nation and the Cinema” (2003). In Guneratne and Dissanayake.
Viewing – Moufida Tlatli – “The Silence of the Palace” (Tunisia - 1994)
Week Five – Central America
Reading – Ana M. Lopez – “Tears and Desire: Women and Melodrama in the ‘Old’ Mexican Cinema” (1991). In King et al.
Viewing – Alberto Gout – Aventurera (Mexico – 1949)
Week Six – South America
Reading – Robert Stam – “Cross-Cultural Dialogisms:Race and Multiculturalism in Brazilian Cinema” (1991). In King et al.
Viewing – Suzana Amaral – The Hour of the Star (Brazil – 1985)
Week Seven – Africa
Reading – N. Frank Ukadike – Black African Cinema – chp. 5
Viewing – Med Hondo – Sairaounia (Burkino Faso – 1986)
Week Eight – Middle East
Reading – Nana Asfour – “The Politics of Arab Cinema: Middle Eastern Filmmakers Face Up to Their Reality” (2000)
Viewing - Hany Abu-Assad – Paradise Now (Palestine – 2005)
Week Nine – Iran
Reading – Hamid Naficy – “Theorizing ‘Third World’ Film Spectatorship: The Case of Iran and Iranian Cinema” (2003). In Guneratne and Dissanayake.
Viewing – Jafar Panahi – The Circle (2000)
Week Ten – India
Reading – Wimal Dissanayake – “Rethinking Indian Popular Cinema”. In Guneratne and Dissanayake.
Viewing – Ashutosh Gowariker – Lagaan (2001)
Week Eleven – China
Reading – Yeuh-Yu Yeh – “Politics and Poetics of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Films” (2001)
Viewing – Hou Hsiao-Hsien – Millenium Mambo (Taiwan - 2001)
Week Twelve – Southeast Asia
Reading – Sumita S. Chakravarty – “The Erotics of History: Gender and Transgression in the New Asian Cinemas” (2003). In Guneratne and Dissanayake. Viewing – Youngyoot Thongkonthun – Iron Ladies (Thailand – 2000)
Week Thirteen - Conclusion
Bibliography:
Asfour, Nana. “The Politics of Arab Cinema: Middle Eastern Filmmakers Face Their Reality.” Cineaste 26.1 (2000): 46-48.
Barlet, Olivier. African Cinema: Decolonizing the Gaze . New York: Zed Books, 2001.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture . London: Routledge, 1994
Browne, Nick et al, eds. New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics . Boston: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Chanan, Michael, ed. Twenty-Five Years of the New Latin American Cinema . London: British Film Institute, 1983.
Chaudhuri, Shohini. Contemporary World Cinema: Europe / Middle East / East Asia / South Asia . Edinburgh: Edinburgh U P, 2005.
Codell, Julie. Genre, Gender, Race and World Cinema . Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film . 4 th Edition. New York: Norton, 2004.
Gabriel, Teshome H. Third Cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetic of Liberation . UMI Research P, 1982.
Guneratne, Anthony and Dissanayake, Wimal, eds. Rethinking Third Cinema . London: Routledge, 2003.
Johnson, Randal and Stam, Robert. Brazilian Cinema . Rev. ed. New York: Columbia UP, 1995
Kaplan, E. Ann. Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film, and the Imperial Gaze . London: Routledge, 1997.
King, John et al., eds. Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas . London: British Film Institute, 1993.
Naficy, Hamid. Otherness and the Media: The Ethnography of the Imagined and the Imaged . Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic, 1993.
Pines, Jim and Willemen, Paul, eds. Questions of Third Cinema . London: British Film Institute, 1989.
Read, Alan, ed. The Fact of Blackness: Frantz Fanon and Visual Representation . Seattle: Bay P, 1996.
Robin, Diana and Jaffe, Ira, eds. Redirecting the Gaze: Gender, Theory, and Cinema in the Third World . Albany: SUNY P, 1999.
Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism . New York: Knopf, 1993.
Shohat, Ella and Stam, Robert. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media . London: Routledge, 1994.
Tapper, Richard, ed. The New Iranian: Politics, Representation and Identity . I. B. Taurus, 2002.
Trinh T. Minh – Ha. When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender, and Cultural Politics , London: Routledge, 1991.
Ukadike, N. Frank. Black African Cinema . Berkeley: U of California P, 1994.
Wayne, Mike. Political Film: The Dialectics of Third Cinema . London: Pluto, 2001.
Yeh, Yueh-Yu. “Politics and Poetics of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Films.” Postscript 20.2-3 (2001): 61-76.
Last reviewed 
12/17/2008 12:52:21 PM
