Queer Cinema

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course serves as an introduction to historical and contemporary queer cinema. In our current moment of unprecedented LGBTQ+ visibility it is ever more necessary we understand how queerness became so visible and the differential stakes and vulnerabilities that accompany such visibility. We will explore a number of core questions in weekly seminar meetings, among them: How have filmmakers and activists sought to alter dominant representations of gender and sexual non-conformity in cinema or used filmmaking as a tool for activist interventions? How do audiences extract and project queer meaning in films during moments of political repression? How can we view cinema and pop culture as simultaneously historical records that reflect the conditions of their making as well as creative endeavors that imagine and authorize future queer possibilities? Screenings will be supplimented with key readings in feminist, queer, and media theory, as well as contemporaneous reviews, interpretive communities, and other ephemera.