Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Explores social, economic, and political change around the globe, through documentaries and feature films. Examines pressing issues that shape and reflect people’s lives in diverse countries and regions, from Asia and Latin America, to Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Breadth-Humanities/Social Sciences.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course explores how contemporary economic, and political challenges shape and reflect the aspirations and struggles of ordinary people in countries around the world. Using both fiction and documentary film as a way of grounding ourselves in the material worlds outside of North America the class will consider specific sites of global interconnection. For instance, thinking with films such as Jennifer Baichwal’s Manufactured Landscapes and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite we will examine the role of social class and geoeconomics in shaping gender roles and social futures. Critically examining the Haifaa al-Mansour’s Wadjda we will consider how class position and gender intersect with the effects of colonial legacies, political policy and feminist liberation. Drawing on recent documentaries such as Matt Hill's Are You Scared Yet, Human? (that features a cameo from the course instructor!), we will think through the effects of surveillance and new media in the lives of racialized populations. Documentary films such as Raoul Peck’s Exterminate All the Brutes, Astra Taylor’s What is Democracy?, Naomi Klein’s The Take, will help us conceptualize the potential for decolonization, radical democracy, and labour rights movements in the face of state violence and labour offshoring. We will explore each topic in the context of specific geographic locations and historical moments, with the goal of becoming better acquainted with particular histories, cultures, economies, and political systems at global, national and subnational levels.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Drawing on insights from across the social sciences, ultimately we will develop clear understandings of themes that are central to the field of International Studies. By the end of the course, students will be able to define and explain the utility of key terms or conceptual frames such as: development, domination, dispossession, decolonization, racialization, gender discrimination, poverty and empowerment, critical human rights, counter-terrorism, Islamophobia, capitalism, and colonialism.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: