WFQS 230 - European Women’s Cinema

1 unit(s)

(Same as FILM 230) This course examines contemporary European culture and history through film; various critical theories (feminist, queer, post-colonial), are studied and applied to films, through selected readings and other relevant resources. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the purpose of this course is to provide critical models for interpreting social and cultural constructions of meaning. We consider the ways in which images of women and the concept of “woman” are invested with culturally and historically specific meanings that intersect with other categories of difference/identity such as: class, sexual orientation, excess, war, and the state. Essential to the discussion of difference will be the analysis of the cultural and linguistic differences introduced by the otherness of film itself, and of the specific films we study. Cinematic interpretive skills are developed through visual and linguistic exercises, group projects, and film-making. Film directors may include: Lina Wertmüller, Liliana Cavani, Margarethe von Trotta, Monika Treut, Ulrike Öttinger, Claire Denis, Coline Serreau, Céline Sciamma, Gurinder Chadha, Ngozi Onwurah. Rodica Blumenfeld.

Prerequisite(s): WFQS 130 preferable but not obligatory.

Open to Sophomores and above.

Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.

Not offered in 2023/24.