Arab Film

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

As a medium that is entangled in the complex relationship between cultural and artistic production and audience reception, this course introduces Arab cinema as a vehicle through which themes of social significance in Arab society are reflected upon, analyzed, upheld or challenged. This course will survey Arab cinema from different periods and genres, and will consider the ways in which cinema is used to explore themes such as gender and sexuality, national identity, war, displacement, poverty, urbanization, colonialism and religion. Students will learn to analyze films critically and become familiar with the key theoretical elements of modern critical and cultural theory as they apply to film study and criticism. The films screened as part of the course will be analyzed from an aesthetic perspective, but also as socially produced narratives that reveal some of the central tensions and concerns of the culture from which they emerged. Students will be introduced to various genres that characterize Arab cinema such as comedy, drama, documentary, musicals, historical and epic.