African American Cinema and the Stakes of Representation

(4 Credits)

African American Cinema provides a window on sociological conditions, a glimpse into the psychology of race, a commentary on racial relations, and a sense of African American aspirations and dreams.The course will cover the period of “Race” films in the 1920s, moving on to the representation of African Americans during the classical Hollywood period. Successive artistic and political movements like the Harlem Renaissance of the 20s and the Black Arts and Black Power Movements of the 1960s expanded African American expression in all of the arts, and were an inspiration to Black auteurs throughout the 20th Century. We will examine Black independent filmmaking, Blaxploitation, the new African American Cinema of the 90s and the beginning of mainstream Black film in the 21st Century. We will frame our inquiry by asking some central questions: How do currents in African American intellectual history inform films created by African-American filmmakers? How does the historical context surrounding the production of the films shape them? Filmmakers include Oscar Micheaux, Cheryl Dunye, Spike Lee, Charles Burnett, and Julie Dash.