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1 ASIAN HORROR FILM FALL 2011 RTF 370 (08475) and ANS 372 (31503) Professor Lalitha Gopalan CMA 6.174 Telephone: 512-471-9374 E-mail: [email protected] Office Hours: Monday 12-3PM; Class: Monday and Wednesday 3-4:30PM, CMA A3.112 Screening: Thursday 5-7:30PM, BUR 134 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. Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny. London: Penguin Books, 2003. 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 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. 2 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%: Two 5- 6 page-papers. You will be provided paper topics a week before the papers are due. Due dates for these papers are as follows: October 14 and December 2. 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 Blackboard the next day before midnight and during the following class session we will collectively comment on your draft. A revised version is due the following Friday. 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 23, October 28, and November 30. 4. Pop quizzes. Grades on these quizzes will affect your final grade since they demonstrate your preparedness for class discussions. 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. 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. August 24: Introduction I. APOCALYPTICAL VISIONS Screening August 25: Black Rain (1988) dir. Shohei Imamura August 29 Mick Broderick, “Introduction.” READER Susan Sontag, “The imagination of disaster.” READER 3 August 31 Carole Cavanaugh, “A working ideology for Hiroshima: Imamura Shôhei's Black rain.” READER Screening September 1: Gojira (1954) dir. Ishiro Honda September 5 (LABOR DAY) September 7 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 8: Akira (1988) dir. Katsuhiro Otomo September 12 Susan J. Napier, “Panic sites: The Japanese imagination of disaster from Godzilla to Akira.” READER September 14 Replace!! Thomas Lamarre’s essay in Japan Forum Recommended Adam Lowenstein, “Unmasking Hiroshima: Demons, Human Beings, and Shindo Kaneto’s Onibaba.” READER Screening September 15: Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) dir. Shinya Tsukamoto September 19 Jay McRoy, “Introduction.” In Japanese Horror Cinema (Hereafter JHC) Part 3 Introduction and Chapter 7 JHC September 21 Elaine Graham, ‘Mapping the post/human.’ READER Recommended Masao Miyoshi and H.D. Harootunian, “Introduction.” READER H.D. Harootunian, “Visible discourses/invisible ideologies.” READER II. GHOSTS AND CINEMA Screening September 22: Kwaidan (1964) Masaki Kobayashi September 26 Marilyn Ivy, “National-cultural phantasms and modernity’s losses.” READER 4 September 28 Freud, ‘The uncanny.’ Screening September 29: Rouge (1987) dir. Stanley Kwan and Haplos (1982). dir. Antonio Jose Perez October 3 Bliss Cua Lim, “Spectral Times: The ghost film as historical allegory.” READER October 5 Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The time of history and the times of the Gods.” READER Screening October 6: R-Point (2004) dir. Su-chang Kong Recommended: Jacob’s Ladder (1990) dir. Adrian Lyne October 10 Kyung Hyun Kim, ‘Introduction.’ The remasculinization of Korean cinema. READER Thomas Doherty, ‘Creating a national cinema: The South Korean experience.’ READER Kim So-Young and Chris Berry, “’Suri suri masuri’: the magic of the Korean horror film: a conversation.” READER October 12 Steve Neale, “Aspects of ideology: and narrative form in the American war films.” READER Stephen Jay Schneider, “World horror cinema and the U.S.” READER Ken Gelder, “Global/postcolonial horror: Introduction.” READER III. REVENGE CYCLE Screening October 13: Audition (2000) dir. Miike Takashi October 17 Introduction Part 2 JHC Steffen Hantke, “Japanese horror under Western eyes.” Chapter 4 JHC October 19 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 20: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) dir. Chan-wook Park 5 October 24 Richard Neupert, “Introduction.” The End READER October 26 Carol Clover, “Rape revenge narratives.” READER Screening October 27: Ju-On: The Grudge dir.Takashi Shimizu Altenate: CURE October 31 Jay McRoy, “Case Study.” Chapter 13 JHC November 2 Freud, “When a child is being beaten.” READER QUOTIDIAN HORRORS Screening November 3: Dumplings (2004) dir. Fruit Chan and Three Extremes November 7 Ackbar Abbas, “Introduction: culture in a space of disappearance.” READER Ka-Fai Yau, “Cinema 3.” READER November 9 Barbara Creed, “Horror and the carnivalesque.” READER Recommended: Mikita Brottman, Offensive Films. RESERVE Screening November 10: Cavite (2005) dir. Neil Dela Llana and Ian Gamazon November 14 Vincente Raphael, “The cell phone and the crowd.” READER November 16 Neferti Xina M. Tadiar, “ Manila new metropolitan form.” READER VISIONS OF EXCESS Screening November 17: Ringu (1998) dir. Hideo Nakata and Ringu 2 (1999) dir. Hideo Nakata November 21 Eric White, “Case study.” Chapter 3 JHC 6 November 23 Ramie Tateishi, “The contemporary horror film series.” In Fear without Frontiers READER Richard Dienst, “The outbreak of television.” READER Screening November 24: The Eye (2002) dir. Oxide Pang Chun Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) dir. Chan-wook Park November 28 Kyu hyun Kim, ‘Horror as critique in Tell me something and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.’ READER November 30: Discussion of your papers .