Document Type
Syllabus
Publication Date
Fall 9-1-2024
Course Description
Reading African American cinema as a pivotal archive in African American cultural production, this course explores the diverse black aesthetic traditions that African American film has and continues to develop, explore, and shape. Specifically, we will track how African American films produced, written, and/or directed by African Americans are situated in larger debates about the politics of race and representation. Beginning with African American modernism and black cultural politics, we will look at the emergence of African American cinema in the 1910s through to the second decade of the 21st century. Films we will investigate include works by Oscar Micheaux, Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Barry Jenkins, and Sundance Grand Jury prize-winning director and DePauw alumna Chinonye Chukwu, (to name a few). Students will be required to generate close readings of articles and cinema using appropriate critical vocabulary and theoretical frameworks. Specifically, we will work as a learning community to develop and refine critical thinking, oral and written expression, and techniques of textual analysis through class discussion, weekly in-class writings, film notes, and article summary responses. As a ‘W’ course, we will also spend time on writing composition, or more specifically, how to craft a compelling, academic, argumentative essay.
Recommended Citation
Wimbley, Karin, "FLME 260A/ENG255D/AFST290A African American Cinema Wimbley Fall 2024" (2024). All Course Syllabi. 698, Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/records_syllabi/698
Student Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to: 1. Demonstrate understanding of how the production and reception of film, television and new media shapes and is shaped by broader cultural, economic, industrial, and technological contexts. 2. Exhibit comprehension of moving-image media’s especially germane links to issues of racial, ethnic, and gender representation, with particular emphasis on how it impacts and is impacted by domestic power, privilege, and diversity as well as its manifestations in assorted global social formations. 3. Compose compelling and persuasive analytical essays about film, television, and new media.