Cinema The Environment

This course provides a grounding in ecocritical theory and the relevant fields of postcolonial studies and ecofeminism. It also introduces film analysis from an ecocritical angle, using a series of films as case studies in ecocriticism and its cognate fields. The course will explore the agenda and rhetorical strategies of more obviously environmentalist filmmaking, as well as examining fiction films that reflect environmentalist concerns in more abstract or allegorical ways. It will thus equip students interested in environmental politics and cinema to recognize and interrogate the assumptions that link popular culture to environmental history and discourse.