Edna Bonhomme HIST 218: Race and Film Winter Session 2017

Course Description This course will trace the history of race and relations in film from 1915 until the present. The course examines familiar racialized and gendered tropes that have emerged in film representations of ethnic and racial minorities and charts changes over time. The course focuses on developing a critical analysis of film and other visual culture through viewing films, researching their history and writing critical--analytical summaries and analyses. To augment our work together in seminar, in on-line discussion sessions each week we will hone our critical techniques through structured argumentation and consideration of current political and media events.

Objectives and learning outcomes Readings, discussions and assignments are designed to enhance the diligent student’s ability to:

• Communicate clearly in writing and orally. • Critically analyze visual representations and identity stereotypes, themes and other tropes. • Summarize arguments clearly and concisely.

Course Schedule Note: Films must be watched prior to coming to class. Date/Topic Film/Readings

Week 1 • Go over syllabus Introductions: • Presentation of films and thematic organization Early Cinema, Race, and Reading: Representation • Barbara J. Fields, “Ideology and Race in American History” in Region, Race, and Reconstruction; Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, ed. J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (New York, 1982), 153-54. • John Hope Franklin, “Birth of a Nation”: Propaganda a History” Massachusetts Review. 20:3 (Aug. 1979): 417-434 • Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing about Film, Chapter 1-3 Film • Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kmVgQHIEY&t=109s Individual Assignment due Friday, 13 January: Film Review of Birth of a Nation (700-1000 words)

Week 2 Reading • Thomas Cripps, “Oscar Micheaux: The Story Continues,” in Manthia Movement Diawara, Black American Cinema. • Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s, Chapters 1 and 2 • Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing about Film, Chapter 4 and 6 • Margaret Walker, For My People (poem) • Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues (a poem) and The Dream Keeper (poem) Film • Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920) Individual Assignment due Friday: Film Biography of Oscar Micheaux (700- 1000 words)

Week 3 Reading Mammies, Maids, • Claudia Jones, “We Seek Full Equality for Women” and • Barbara J. Fields and Karen Fields, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in Mules…Black American Life, Chapter 7, “Witchcraft and Racecraft: Invisible Ontology Women in Early in Its Sensible Manifestations” American Cinema • Howard Zinn, Chapter 15 of “A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present” Films • Imitation of Life (John M. Stahl, 1934) • Nothing But a Man (Roemer, 1964)

Week 4 Reading Civil Rights and • Frank Bardacke, “The United Farm Workers from the Ground Up,” in Resistance Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s • Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit, I do mind dying: A Study in Urban Revolution, Chapters 2-4 • Optional: Freedom on My Mind (Connie Field, 1994)

Films • Salt of the Earth (Hibert Biberman, 1954) • Finally Got the News (1970) Group Project: Social movements and legislation: Black and Latinos between 1950s and 1960s

Week 5 Reading Economic • Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Recession, Race, Identity. New York: Routledge, 2000, Chapter 3 “Gender: The Circular and Sexuality in Ruins of Contemporary Debate” New York City • The Queer Nation Manifesto, “History as a Weapon” ACT-UP, http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/queernation.html • Optional: John H. Mollenkopf, A Phoenix in the Ashes: The Rise and Fall of the Koch Coalition in New York City Politics, Chapters 2 Films • 80 Blocks from Tiffany’s (Gary Weis, 1979) • Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990) Group Project: AIDS and Public Health in New York City from 1980-1990

Week 6 Reading Settler • Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues Colonialism and • Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, Native American Introduction and Chapters 9 Resistance Films • Incident at Oglala (Michael Apted, 1992) • Smoke Signals (Chris Eyre, 1998) Group Project: Mapping Indigenous Groups and Struggles: From 1492 to Standing Rock

Week 7 Reading U.S. Imperialism, • Noam Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Migration and Political Culture, Introduction Asian Americans • Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move, Introduction • Robert B. Ito, “A Certain Slant”: A Brief History of Hollywood Yellowface” Films • Mississippi Masala (Mira Nair, 1991) • Daughter from Danang (Gail Dolgin, 2002) Group Project: Migrants and Refugees from the Asian Continent

Week 8 Reading Race and Gender • Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class. Chapter 12, “Racism, Birth Control in America and Reproductive Rights” Films • Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991) • Real Women Have Curves (Patricia Cardoso, 2002) Group Project: Labor, Race and Gender in the United States

Week 9 Reading Arab Americans • Edward Said, Orientalism, Introduction in Film • Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, Chapters 8-10 • Fairouz’s Zahrat-il-Mada’in (Flower of the Cities, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu2qxiFRJrQ Films • Reel Bad Arabs (Sut Jhally, 2006) • Amreeka (Cherien Dabis, 2009) Individual Assignment due Friday: U.S. Imperialism and the Middle East (700- 1000 words)

Week 10 Reading New Directions in • Hamid Dabashi, Iran Without Borders: Towards a Critique of the American Cinema Postcolonial Nation, Chapter 8 • Manning Marable, Beyond Black and White: From Civil Rights to Barack Obama, Introduction • Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation • Optional: Hilton Als, “Moonlight, undoes our expectations,” New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/24/moonlight-undoes- our-expectations Film • A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (, 2014) • Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016) Individual Assignment due Friday: Afrofuturism, Diaspora and Cinema (1000- 1200 words)