ML3207 Transnationalism, Diaspora and Globalization in Contemporary Film

Terms 1-2

Convenor: Dr Fabrizio De Donno

Assessment:

Formative piece (0%); Essay 1: 30%, 2,000-2,500 words; Essay 2: 60%, 2,500-3,000 words

Online (Moodle) Test: 10%

Overview

This course explores cinematic representations of the transnational encounter between people, cultures and institutions interconnected by the forces of globalization. The topics covered range from (anti-)colonialism and revolution to neo-colonialism, postcoloniality and migration. Attention is paid to the ways in which the films deal with the themes of emancipation, hybridity, displacement, global capitalism and politics, and cosmopolitanism. The course covers the development of transnational cinema from its origins with Third Cinema and then goes on to explore postcolonial and migration cinema covering areas ranging from South America and Africa to Europe.

Sample Filmography:

Maranahão 66 (Brazil, 1966), dir. Glauber Rocha

Terra em Transe (Land In Anguish, Brazil, 1967), dir. Glauber Rocha

Borom Sarret (The Waggoner, Senegal, 1963), dir. Ousmane Sembene

Xala (Senegal, 1974), dir. Ousmane Sembene

Guelwaar (Senegal, 1993), dir. O. Sembene

Bamako (Mali/France, 2006), dir. Abderrahmane Sissako

Once You Are Born You Can No Longer Hide (Italy/France, 2005), dir. Marco Tullio Giordana

Shun Li & The Poet (Italy, 2011), dir. Andrea Segre 

Secondary Literature: General, Theoretical and Introductory

Durovicova, N. and Newman, K., eds., World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2009)

Ezra, E. and Rowden, T., eds., Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2006)

Iordanova, D., Martin-Jones, D. and Vidal, B., eds., Cinema at the Periphery (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010).

Loshitzky, Yosepha Screening Strangers: Migration and Diaspora in Contemporary European Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010)

Maty Ba, Saer and Higbee, Will, eds., De-Westernizing Film Studies (London: Routledge, 2012)

Naficy, Hamid, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001)

Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ed., The Oxford History of World Cinema (Oxford: OUP, 1996)

Ponzanesi, S. and Waller, M., eds., Postcolonial Cinema Studies (London: Routledge, 2011)