Film Visual Culture:the Gulf

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

In this course, we will examine the current and historical development film and visual culture in the Gulf. The course aims to offer a conceptual and critical framework to analyze the social, political, and cultural role of the moving image in the modern Gulf. To this end, in the first part of the course, we will focus on how the moving image has functioned as an important medium for both the British colonial administration and the oil companies to generate the post-oil image of the region. In the second section, we will trace the history of local filmmaking and its evolution in the aftermath of the independence of Gulf countries in the early 1970s. In the third portion, we will look at the contemporary scene of film and visual culture that has emerged in the context of the rise of the Gulf as a regional and global hub.