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ASIAN ©1 FALL 2015 RTF 370 (08910) and ANS 372 (31503)

Professor Lalitha Gopalan CMA 5.108 Telephone: 512-471-9374 E-mail: [email protected]

Office Hours: Wednesday 1-3PM Class: W 5:00PM- 8:00PM CMA 6.170 Screening: Thursday 7:30-10PM CMA 3.116

This course assumes the student’s familiarity with classical horror films, European and American films to be precise, and the attendant theories on genre and spectatorship. While the theoretical speculations have taken American and European films as their models, they seem totally unprepared for the vibrant horror films emerging from Asia, India to Japan, and this is exactly our charge for the course—to better understand the cinematic style of Asian horror films. As any cinephile would testify while these films have stock figures such as ghosts and monsters, haunted houses, possessed women, and disasters they also question our settled ideas of beauty and disgust that imperceptibly shape our notions of racial, sexual, and national differences.

The following required texts are available for purchase at the University Co-op. 1. Japanese Horror Cinema. Ed. Jay McRory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005. 2. Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema. Eds. Jinhee Choi and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009. 3. Cinema. Eds. Alison Peirse and Daniel Martin. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013. 4. Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny. London: Penguin Books, 2003. 5. Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others.

A reading packet is also available for purchase at Jenn’s Copy and Binding.

Attendance: You are expected to be on time for class sessions and screenings. If for some unexpected reason you are absent for a class, you are expected to inform me via telephone or email. Please note that two or more absences will result in a lower final grade: B to C and so on.

Class sessions: Please note that this course will be taught as a seminar class and not as a series of lectures. You are expected to bring the relevant texts to class and come fully

1 Please note that Lalitha Gopalan is the sole author of this syllabus and holds the copyright. 2 prepared for class discussions. Please be prepared to respond to my questions on particular aspects of the readings and films in class as well as initiating your own formulations of the texts. Be warned that you will be marked absent if you fail to bring the relevant texts to class.

GRADES

Grades for this class will avail of the plus/minus grading system: A, A-, and so on.

Please note that this course has a substantial writing component and hence your final grade will be based on the following written assignments:

1. 50%: Based on 7-8 page paper to be submitted in two parts, two 5-7 page papers. You are expected to choose one film not assigned on the syllabus as your primary text for the entire semester. Please consult with me on your choice of films. Your first paper submission on this film (not graded) should offer a detailed segmenting of the entire film with a short bibliography.

September 21: Segmenting Exercise and bibliography

October 19: First submission, 4-5 pages

December 9: Second submission, 7-8 pages.

2. 25%: Class presentation of a theoretical essay. After the first week of class, I expect you to sign up for a class presentation of one of the assigned essays in your syllabus. You will be allotted the entire class session to lead the discussion of an essay with ample help from the class. A draft version of your reading of the essay and film should be posted on Canvas for peer review. Please note that the draft should be posted no later than 6PM on Tuesday so that we can properly review it for our Wednesday class. A revised version is due the following Monday.

3. 25%: Film Journals. After each screening you are expected to spend a few minutes recording visual details from the films. You are strongly encouraged to expand on these impressions well after the screening so as to include reactions to readings and other films.

Journals are due on September 28, October 26, and November 30.

Papers are due in my mailbox by 2pm on the date of submission.

Please be aware that your papers have to abide by the prevailing Honor Code of the university.

I strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with facilities available at the Writing Center. 3

Please be advised that readings and film screenings are subject to revision.

Please note that you are encouraged not to communicate with me via e-mail on matters pertaining to class readings, assignments, and grades. I have designated office hours to discuss precisely such matters.

SCHEDULE

August 26: Introduction

I. APOCALYPTICAL VISIONS

Screening August 27: Black Rain (1988) dir. Shohei Imamura

September 2 Mick Broderick, “Introduction.” READER Susan Sontag, “The imagination of disaster.” READER Carole Cavanaugh, “A working ideology for Hiroshima: Imamura Shôhei's Black rain.” READER

Recommended: Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others.

Recommended: Screening: Onibaba (1964) dir. Shindo Kaneto Adam Lowenstein, “Unmasking Hiroshima: Demons, Human Beings, and Shindo Kaneto’s Onibaba.” READER

Screening September 3: Gojira (1954) dir. Ishiro Honda

September 9 Philip Brophy, “Monster island; Godzilla and Japanese sci-fi/horror/fantasy.” READER Nancy Anisfield, “Godzilla/Gojira.” READER Chon Noreiga, “Godzilla and the Japanese nightmare: when ‘them’ is U.S.” READER

Screening September 10: Akira (1988) dir. Katsuhiro Otomo

September 16 Susan J. Napier, “Panic sites: The Japanese imagination of disaster from Godzilla to Akira.” READER Thomas Lamarre’s ‘From animation to anime: moving drawings, drawing movements.’ READER

Screening September 17: Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) dir. Shinya Tsukamoto 4

September 23 Jay McRoy, “Introduction.” In Japanese Horror Cinema (Hereafter JHC) Part 3 Introduction and Chapter 7 JHC Recommended Elaine Graham, ‘Mapping the post/human.’ READER Masao Miyoshi and H.D. Harootunian, “Introduction.” READER H.D. Harootunian, “Visible discourses/invisible ideologies.” READER

II. GHOSTS AND CINEMA

Screening September 24: Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi

September 30 Keiko MacDonald, ‘Ugetsu: Why is it a Masterpiece?’ READER David Bordwell, ‘Mizoguchi and the Evolution of Film Language.’ READER Marilyn Ivy, ‘National-cultural phantasms and modernity’s losses.’ READER

Screening October 1: A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) dir. Kim Jee-woon

October 7 Robert Cagle, ‘Diary of a Lost Girl: Victoriana, Intertextuality and A Tale of Two Sisters.’ In Korean Horror Cinema Leung Wing-Fai, ‘From A Tale of Two Sisters to The Uninvited: A Tale of Two Texts.’ In Korean Horror Cinema Jinhee Choi, ‘A Cinema of Girlhood: Sonyeo Sensibility and the Decorative Impuse in the Korean Horror Cinema.’ In Horror to the Extreme

Screening October 8: R-Point (2004) dir. Su-chang Kong Recommended: Jacob’s Ladder (1990) dir. Adrian Lyne

October 14 Steve Neale, “Aspects of ideology: and narrative form in the American war films.” READER Mark Morris, ‘War-Horror and Anti-Communism: from Piagol to Rainy Days.’ In Korean Horror Cinema

III. REVENGE CYCLE

Screening October 15: Audition (2000) dir. Miike Takashi

October 21 Introduction Part 2 JHC Steffen Hantke, “Japanese horror under Western eyes.” Chapter 4 JHC Robert Hyland, ‘A Politics of Excess: Violence and Violation in Miike Takashi’s Audition.’ In Horror to the Extreme 5

Mika Ko, “The break-up of the national body.” READER Daniel and Wood, “Pain threshold: the cinema of Takashi Miike.” READER

RECOMMENDED: The worlds of Japanese popular culture: gender, shifting boundaries and global cultures. Ed. D.P. Martinez.

Screening October 22: Ju-On: The Grudge (2003) dir.Takashi Shimizu

October 28 Jay McRoy, “Case Study.” Chapter 13 JHC MitsuyoWada-Marciano, ‘J-Horror: New Media’s Impact on Contemporary Japanese Horrror Cinema.’ In Horror to the Extreme Freud, “When a child is being beaten.” READER

Screening October 29: Oldboy (2005) dir. Chan-wook Park

November 4 Kyung Hyun Kim, ‘”Tell the Kitchen There’s Too Much Buchi in the Dumplings: Reading Park Chan-wook’s “Unknowable’ Oldboy.’ In Horror to the Extreme. Robert Cagle, ‘The Good, the Bad, and the South Korean: Violence, Morality, and the South Korean Extreme Film.’ In Horror to the Extreme.

QUOTIDIAN HORRORS

Screening November 5: Dumplings (2004) dir. Fruit Chan and Three Extremes

November 11 Emile Yueh-yu Yeh and Neda Hei-tung Ng, ‘Magic, Medicine, Cannibalism: The China Demon in Hong Kong Horror.’ In Horror to the Extreme Ackbar Abbas, “Introduction: culture in a space of disappearance.” READER Ka-Fai Yau, “Cinema 3.” READER Barbara Creed, “Horror and the carnivalesque.” READER

Recommended: Mikita Brottman, Offensive Films. RESERVE

AUTEURS

Screening November 12: Address Unknown (2001) dir. Kim Ki-duk

November 18 Hye Seung Chung, ‘Beyond ‘Extreme’: The Cinema of Resentment.’ READER

Screening November 19: Loft (2005) dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

November 25 6

Chika Kinoshita, ‘The Mummy Complex: Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Loft and J-Horror.’ In Horror to the Extreme. Jerry White, ‘Loft’ and ‘Interview.’ READER Freud, The Uncanny

VISIONS OF EXCESS

November 26: THANKSGIVING BREAK: No Class Screening.

A CHOICE OF VIEWING ON YOUR OWN DEVICES:

Ringu (1998) or The Eye (2002).

Screening November 26: Ringu (1998) dir. Hideo Nakata Recommended: Ringu 2 (1999) dir. Hideo Nakata

December 2 Eric White, “Case study.” Chapter 3 JHC Ramie Tateishi, “The contemporary horror film series.” In Fear without Frontiers READER Richard Dienst, “The outbreak of television.” READER

OR

Screening November 26: The Eye (2002) dir. Oxide Pang Chun

December 2 Adam Knee, ‘The Pan-Asian Outlook of The Eye. In Horror to the Extreme.