Cultural Studies Of Chinese Cinemas

AY2019/2020 Semester 1

This course teaches appreciation and discussion of important works in Chinese-language cinematic history, leading third year and fourth year students to rethink the origins of Chinese cinemas in mainland China and its development and variation in Hong Kong and Taiwan. This course also provides you with a basic knowledge of film concepts and theories, including star studies, silent film, film genre theory, Chinese leftist cinema, narrative cinema, auteur theory, and queer cinema. This course will also analyse and discuss topics of class, gender, and nationality in cultural research on Chinese cinemas. Through appreciation and study of the visual politics of film, you will be able to place the politics re-presented in Chinese-language cinematic texts back into their actual local historical and social/cultural context.