21L.435 Literature and Film

Same Subject As: CMS.840
Prereq: One subject in Literature or Comparative Media Studies
Units: 3-3-6 HASS-H; Can be repeated for credit

The focus of this course will be to analyze the ways in which sex and gender are represented and transformed by literature and film. In the first part of the course, we will consider the representation, misrepresentation, and erasure of gendered and sexualized identities, examining feminist critiques and the queering of Hollywood classics such as Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) and Hawk’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). In the second part of the course, we will explore a wide variety of books and films that challenge and reimagine dominant constructions of gender and sexuality. Topics will include gender fluidity in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928), oppressive domesticity in Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman (1975), the legendary drag queens and ‘voguers’ of Livingston’s Paris is Burning (1991), and normalizing “illicit” desire in contemporary television. Students will hone their critical capacities through the study of key theoretical texts that engage with questions of gender, race, queerness, transgender identity, and intersectionality.