EN 500.01 Queer Cinema/Queer Theory (Spring 2011-2012: 3)
Queer theoretical readings of cinema make especially clear queer theory¿s
departure from the enterprises that nevertheless made it possible: from
feminism, from psychoanalysis, from gay studies and the search for "positive"
representations of homosexuality, for example. Striving to offer an introduction
to queer theory, this course will (one hopes) do more than that. The course
will consist primarily in detailed readings of theoretical texts and films,
which will lead us to ask a series of questions about film and sexuality.
What is queer cinema? If it is not defined by its "content" (representations
of gay people, for example), what aspects of cinema can one call "queer"?
While glancing at a self-conscious tradition of queer cinema, we will also
consider ways in which so-called mainstream cinema is queer, perhaps looking
especially a certain genres: the Western, the melodrama, the buddy film,
the crime caper—and, perhaps, that minor genre of the 1950s, adaptions
of plays by Tennessee Williams. How do the theoretical insights of queer
theory influence how one thinks about spectatorship? What are some of the
different assumptions that lead queer theory to depart, for example, from
the important models of spectatorship given film studies by feminism and
psychoanalysis? Why do we find films thrilling or sexy even when, in a
sterner mood, we might nevertheless find objectionable their understandings
of marginalized sexualities? What if we look at films not as "examples"
to be glossed by theoretical models but as modes of thought that, within
the limitations and possibilities of the filmic medium, pursue questions
of sexuality in their own terms? Students will be expected to attend regular
film screenings and to give careful attention to class readings. Theorists
might include: Lee Edelman, D.A. Miller, Leo Bersani, Gilles Deleuze, and
Stanley Cavell. Filmmakers might include: Pedro Almodóvar, Robert Bresson,
Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Jackson, Derek Jarman, Wong Kar-Wai, Buster Keaton,
Ernst Lubitsch, Terrence Malick, Joseph Mankiewicz, Gus Van Sant, and Douglas
Sirk.
Kevin Ohi
Last Updated: 28-JAN-11