Topic for Fall 2015: Body Genres
The term “body genre” has come to signify films that not only centralize the body thematically but also engage the body of the spectator in the experience of the film through laughter, involuntary muscle reflexes of joy or fear, or erotic arousal. Developed by Carol J. Clover and Linda Williams in relationship to horror and pornographic film, the idea of body genres has been extended to include action film, musicals, comedy, and melodrama. Similarly, Tom Gunning speaks of the power of early cinema to “show” rather than “tell” through images and movement that shocked rather than through cinematic narrativization. This course will examine the power of film to configure the body on screen to provoke a reaction from the viewer as well as societal reactions to that cinematic power.

Topic for Spring 2015: The Aesthetic of Resistance in African American Cinema
Cinema culture has provided one of the major forums for negotiating African American inclusion within the larger American body politic. D. W. Griffith's 1915 film Birth of a Nation, which celebrated the Klu Klux Klan and is widely considered to be the beginning of narrative cinema culture in the US, is also the beginning of an image culture that has often worked directly against the interests of African Americans. This class will explore the ways filmmakers have challenged dominant modes of racial representation and created a cinematic aesthetic of resistance to mainstream visual culture.