79-238 Modern African American Film: History and Resistance
6 units, Carnegie Mellon University
This course explores the historical and contemporary impact of resistance on and in African American film during the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries. We will consider how filmmakers use narrative and aesthetics to represent, address, and combat antiblackness, attend to filmmaking itself as a potential act of resistance, and cultivate our own oppositional gazes as spectators and critics. The five films we will watch are Within Our Gates dir. Oscar Micheaux, 1920 Do the Right Thing dir. Spike Lee, 1989 Daughters of the Dust dir. Julie Dash, 1993 The Watermelon Woman dir. Cheryl Dunye, 1996 Moonlight dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016 Access to the films and any supplemental readings will be provided unless otherwise stated on the syllabus, students will be expected to carefully study this material prior to each class. Though there will be brief lectures contextualizing each films production and reception history, the majority of our meeting times will be spent on studentled discussion. Assignments include weekly written responses, a final project, and classroom participation. Because of the nature of the course topic and the content of the films, participation requires extended engagement with fictional depictions of issues including, but not limited to, lynching, sexual violence, police brutality, homophobia, and intraracial antagonism. Students are free to contact me at any point in the term if this becomes an issue.
Prerequisites: none listed
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