Welcome!

Welcome to GWS 111: Feminist Film Studies: Bodies, Genres, Politics.


This course offers an introduction to feminist film studies, particularly focusing on several recent sub-genres, directors, and themes that have become central to feminist film culture and scholarship. Utilizing a transnational feminist cultural studies approach, we will explore questions of what feminist media practices might be at the levels of production, circulation, consumption, and representation. We will explore constructions of sexuality, gender, race, and nation in a variety of media practices in an attempt to understand the stakes that institutions such as law, medicine, and film industries have in such productions. Particular attention will be paid to the role of medium in constructing meaning, as the films we will focus on include those made through celluloid and digital technologies, films critiquing visual surveillance practices, short films involving mixed media, and animated films adapted from graphic novels. As a whole, the course will encourage students to develop a critical understanding of the mutual imbrications of sexuality, race, nation, class, and gender in cinema, and explore the ways cinema cultures both reinforce and critique various hegemonies.

The course is not an introduction to film studies, but does spend time reviewing basic film concepts (editing, cinematography, mise-en-scène, etc.) so that students can apply them to the films we watch. In the course, students will learn to incorporate formal film analysis with an analysis of ideology, production, circulation, and consumption, and will develop the skills to construct compelling arguments about the politics of cinema.

Each week, students will post 1 blog entry about the week's course materials (each entry must reference both the week's film(s) and at least 1 of the course readings) by 9:00 pm on the date listed on the syllabus. Further, students will then post 2 comments on their classmates' blog posts by 1:00 pm on the next day. These comments should be thoughtful considerations, and are the place where you can ask questions about your classmates' posts, respond to questions they pose, link to other visual media, or evaluate what conversations your classmates' posts enable.

I encourage you to embed links in both your blog post and your comments to articles, definitions, and especially images, videos, and other web ephemera that you find relevant to the week's material. This is obviously a class about film and visual culture, and I encourage you to link the scholarly articles and films from class to other visual media you encounter in your lives.

If you are new to blogging, don't fear--we will discuss this assignment throughly on the 1st day of class, as well as go over what constitutes a good blog post.