This course will revisit the 1990s boom of queer representations on the big screen, or the “new queer cinema” as film critic Ruby Rich called it in 1992. We will discuss a number of films that have been influential in shaping this “new queer” aesthetics. While these films do not follow one specific aesthetic or political agenda, they challenged and changed the representation of gender and sexuality lastingly by providing unflinching and not always sympathetic representations of queer life. No longer a humanist call for the inclusion of gay, lesbian and transgender people into mainstream society, these movies interrogate the very binary construction of gender and sexuality. The aim of the seminar is to familiarise students with the methodological tools of film analysis and provide theoretical insights into film studies, for example, gaze theories. Students will learn to interrogate the cultural and visual construction of gender and sexuality and will be introduced to the theoretical framework of Queer Theory as well as gain insights into the US cultural politics of the 1990s addressing issues such as homo- and transphobia, racism as well as the so-called AIDS crisis of the time. Finally, we will also briefly discuss whether now, twenty-five years later, a “new wave” queer cinema is emerging.
A digital reader on Moodle with relevant secondary material will be provided at the beginning of the course. It is strongly recommended to watch at least a few of the films before the semester starts.
Recommended Films:
Mala Noche (Gus Van Sant, 1986)
Tongues Untied (Marlon Riggs, 1989)
The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, 1995)
Silverlake Life: The View from Here (Peter Friedman and Tom Joslin 1993)
Poison (Todd Haynes, 1990)
Swoon (Tom Kalin, 1992)
The Living End (Gregg Araki, 1992)
Go Fish (Rose Troche, 1994)
The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996)
High Art (Lisa Cholodenko, 1998)
By Hook or By Crook (Silas Howard and Harry Dodge, 2001)
Interior. Leather Bar (Travis Mathews, 2013)
Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
All films can be found in the Mediothek of the Sprachenzentrum (DOR 65) |
