Syllabus for Radical Black Film--Spring 2010

SCHEDULE FOR RADICAL BLACK FILM (Spring 2010)

WEEK #1—1/26—The Context of Radical Black Film—Confronting Stereotypical
Representations and The Development of Cinematic Strategies
Screening: Ethnic Notions (dir. Marlon Riggs, 1986, 55 min.)/Classified X (dir. Mark Daniels, 1998, 56 min.)
Readings: Bogle—“Black Beginnings: From Uncle Tom’s Cabin to The Birth of a Nation”/Cripps—“Black Film as Genre: Definitions”/Diawara—“Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification and Resistance/Snead—"Images of Blacks in Black Independent Films: A Brief
Survey”

WEEK #2—2/2—Early Filmmakers
Screening: Within Our Gates (dir. Oscar Micheaux, 1919, 87 min.)/Clips from Murder in Harlem (dir. Oscar Micheaux, 1935, 102 min.)
Readings: Bowser and Spence—“Within Whose Gates?: The Symbolic and Political Complexity of Racial Discourses”/Green—“Micheaux’s Class Position”/Locke—“The New Negro”

WEEK #3—2/9—Films from Continental Africa
Screening: Xala (dir. Ousmane Sembene, 1975, 120 min.)/Clips from Black Girl (dir. Ousmane Sembene, 1966, 59 min.)
Readings: Boughedir—“A Cinema Fighting for Its Liberation”/Diawara—"The Artist as the Leader of the Revolution: The History of the Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes"/ Pfaff—“Sembene, A Griot of Modern Times”

WEEK #4—2/16—The Birth of Blaxploitation and the Emerging Presence of Blacks in Hollywood
Screening: clips from Sweet Sweetback's Baaadassss Song (dir. Melvin
Van Peebles, 1971, 90 min.)/ Baaadassss Cinema (dir. Isaac Julien, 2004, 58 min.)
Readings: Massood—"Cotton in the City: The Black Ghetto, Blaxploitation, and Beyond"/ James—“Melvin Van Peebles: ‘Original Guerilla’”/Yearwood—"Colloquy on Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song and the Development of the Contemporary Black Film Movement"

WEEK #5—2/23—Challenging Revamped Stereotypes of Blacks in Hollywood
Screening: Bush Mama (dir. Haile Gerima, 1975, 98 min.)/Clips from Killer of Sheep (dir. Charles Burnett, 1977, 81 min.)
Readings: Masilela—"The Los Angeles School of Black
Filmmakers" /Murashige—“Haile Gerima and the Political Economy of Cinematic Resistance/Young—“Shot in Watts”

WEEK #6—3/2—Films of the Caribbean
Screening: Sugar Cane Alley (dir. Euzhan Palcy, 1983, 107 min.)
Readings: Warner—"Film, Literature, and Identity in the Caribbean”/Givanni—“Interview with Euzhan Palcy”/Hall—“Cinematic Identity and Cultural Representation

WEEK #7—3/9— Black British Cinema
Screening: The Passion of Remembrance (dirs. Maureen Blackwood, Isaac Julien, 1986, 80 min.)
Readings: Auguiste/Black Audio Film Collective—“Black Independents and Third Cinema: The British Context”/Fusco—“A Black Avant-Garde?: Notes on Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa”/Mercer—“Diaspora Culture and the Dialogic Imagination”/Pines—“The Cultural Context of Black British Cinema”

WEEK #8—3/16— Women Filmmakers
Screening: Daughters of the Dust (dir. Julie Dash, 1991, 110 min.)
Readings: Bambara—“Preface”/Dash—"Making Daughters of the Dust”/Dash and hooks—“Dialogue”/Tate—“A Word”

WEEK #9—3/23—Spring Break

WEEK #10—3/30— Mid-term presentations/Mid-term paper due

WEEK #11—4/6—Confronting and Re-Writing History
Screening: The Watermelon Woman (dir. Cheryl Dunye, 1996, 83 min.)
Readings: Cripps—“New Black Cinema and Uses of the Past”/Foote—"Hoax of the Lost Ancestor: Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman"/Haslett and Abiaka—"Interview with Cheryl Dunye”

WEEK #12—4/13—Blackness and Sexuality
Screening: Looking for Langston (dir. Isaac Julien, 1986, 45min.)/ Tongues Untied (dir. Marlon Riggs, 1990, 55 min.)
Readings: Gates—“Looking for Modernism”/Julien—"'Black Is, Black Ain't': Notes on De-Essentializing Black Identities"/Riggs—"Unleash the Queen"/van Leer—“Visible Silence: Spectatorship in Black Gay and Lesbian Film”

WEEK #13—4/20—Renaissance of Contemporary African-American Cinema
Screening: Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee, 1989, 109 min.)
Readings: Massood—“Welcome to Crooklyn: Spike Lee and the Rearticulation of the Black Urbanscape”/Watkins—“Black Youth and the Ironies of Capitalism”

WEEK #14—4/27—New Media, Representation and the Neglect of History
Screenings: Bamboozled (dir. Spike Lee, 2000, 136 min.)
Readings: Crowdus and Georgakas—"Thinking About the Power of Images: An Interview with Spike Lee/Davis—"'Beautiful Ugly' Blackface: An Aesthetic Appreciation of Bamboozled"/Landau—"Spike Lee's Revolutionary Broadside"/Lucia—"Race, Media, and Money: A Critical Symposium on Spike Lee's Bamboozled/Rogin—"Nowhere Left to Stand: The Burnt Cork Roots of Popular Culture"/Tate—"Bamboozled: White Supremacy and a Black Way of Being Human/White—"Post-Art Minstrelsy"/Massood—“Epilogue: New Millenium Minstrel Shows? African-American Cinema in the Late 1990s”

WEEK #15—5/3—Post-Millenial Expressions of African-American Cinematic Identity
Screenings: Medicine for Melancholy (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2009, 87 min.)
Readings: Lim—“Examining Race and a Future Beyond It” (New York Times)/Lott--“A No-Theory Theory of Contemporary Black Cinema”/O’Hehir—“Young, Black, Sexy, and Sad in San Francisco” (Salon)/Taylor—“We Don’t Need Another Hero: Anti-Theses on Aesthetics”/Tully—“A Conversation with Barry Jenkins”/Yearwood—“Towards a Theory of a Black Cinema Aesthetic”

WEEK #16—5/10—Final Discussion/Final Paper presentations

WEEK #17—5/17 (EXAM WEEK)—FINAL PAPER DUE by 4:00pm