This course journeys through world cinema to examine how sexuality is imagined, defined, and contested at the intersections of gender, race, colonialism, religion, caste, and disability. Through close analyses of film texts and discussions around key themes and debates in Sexuality Studies, students trace how desire, power, and representation unfold across different histories and cultures.
This course intends to:
- Cultivate the practice of attentive and imaginative viewing as a scholarly method;
- Equip students with strategies for engaging with challenging theoretical texts;
- Enable students to formulate inventive, textually-grounded arguments that integrate close analysis of cinematic form with larger conceptual frameworks; and
- Encourage students to situate cultural objects like films within broader interdisciplinary conversations.
This class will appeal to students interested in Women and Gender Studies, Film, Media, and Communication Studies, English, and Comparative Literature. No prior coursework is required. By the end of the semester, students will have developed not only a deeper understanding of the politics and aesthetics of sexuality but also a more nuanced eye for how images, sound, montage, narrative, and characterization give shape to desire.
