Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Content will vary according to interests of faculty and students but will involve China-related study within one or more of the social science or humanities disciplines. This course may be repeated for credit only when a different topic is taught.

COURSE DETAILS:

Global Chinese Cinema

This course introduces Chinese-language cinema from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan since the late 1980s when dramatic political, economic and social changes have taken place. How do Chinese films represent and make sense of these changes? How do film artists re-tell national histories and construct local identities in a time of transition? And what are the representative cinematic works that won international acclaims? Through watching and discussing these films, we will examine the thematic concerns, the narrative forms and the cinematic languages of contemporary Chinese cinema; we will also discuss the social and cultural context of these films to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between cinema and society. 

Besides a variety of cinematic works ranging from domestic blockbusters to internationally acclaimed arts films, students will also be exposed to scholarly works to learn different approaches in writing about films. 

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

The goals of the course are: 

1) to discover contemporary Chinese language cinema and gain a deeper understanding of fictional representation of history and reality in Chinese cinema;
2) to develop generic skills in film analysis as well as writing about film. Students will learn to engage in critical reading of cinematic texts through weekly class discussion, presentation, and various kinds of writing exercises.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: