Teaching

Media is a powerful tool. The term “media activism” refers to how media is used to campaign for or bring about social or political change. This class will focus on how underrepresented identity-based and cause-based groups in the United States have used different kinds of media forms and practices in the service of social justice movements. We will examine various social movements, including AIDS activism, Black Lives Matter, anti-imperialism and anti-war movements, and Palestine solidarity activism, and examine the media texts and practices these movements employ, such as culture jamming, street art, documentary and narrative film, film festivals, public television, social media, and memes. We will read interdisciplinary texts from the fields of film and media studies, critical race and ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and postcolonial studies to interrogate the relationships between representation and power, and to identify how and why certain forms of media activism emerge at particular historical moments.

What exactly is a stereotype? How and why are stereotypes formed? Are all stereotypes negative? What social, political, and economic function do stereotypes serve in the context of American culture? This class provides a historical overview of the development of various racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, and socio-economic stereotypes in the United States. Together, we will interrogate how and why stereotypes are inscribed through mass media and used as a technology of social and political power. We will examine a wide range of cultural artifacts, including cinema, advertising, television, print and televisual news media, and other forms of visual culture and media, in conjunction with interdisciplinary readings in media studies, race and ethnic studies, and gender and sexuality studies. The goal of this class is not simply to identify if a stereotype is negative or positive, or debate whether or not stereotypes are harmful. Rather, the goal is to understand what role stereotypes have historically played in American culture and the impact stereotypes have on politics, social relations, and the material reality of daily life in the United States.

This course explores the ways in which Arabs and the Middle East have been represented in Hollywood cinema. Through an examination of Hollywood films over the last century, such as “The Sheik” (1921), “The Ten Commandments” (1956), and “The Siege” (1998), a shift in stereotypes is traced from the rich Arab sheik with harems of women to the Arab terrorist. Through this process, the course examines the connection between representations and the historical-political moment in which they are created and disseminated, from European colonization of the Arab world to 9/11. How have international relations, political events, and foreign policy influenced representations in Hollywood filmmaking? How do representations in film and media become part of American culture? Through examining these questions, we will develop an analysis of the changing landscape of race, gender, and American identity in film. We will also examine the counter-current of filmmaking and other genres, such as independent films and stand-up comedy. This course fulfills the Humanities requirement and the Race and Ethnicity requirement. This course was originally designed and taught by Professor Evelyn Alsultany.

Over the last twenty years, Palestinian cinema has garnered much critical acclaim and international fanfare. As a body of cinema produced under ongoing conditions of colonialism and exile, Palestinian cinema is not your average “national” cinema. Palestinian films are often discussed as an allegory for national struggle or as a corrective or counternarrative to Hollywood and Israeli misrepresentations of Palestine and Palestinians. As such, the category of “Palestinian cinema” is often forced to carry a cumbersome burden of representation. What happens when we examine Palestinian cinema on its own terms: less in relation to “the conflict,” not solely as an allegory, and not always as a corrective or counternarrative? While these topics will certainly be discussed in this class, this course asks you, the student-spectator, to take several steps back from what you think you may know about Palestine or Palestinians and consider what various kinds of social, cultural, or political work is being accomplished through this national and diasporic cinematic movement? This course takes a chronological approach to the study of Palestinian cinema in order to chart multiple aesthetic, political, and cultural shifts which demonstrate the depth and complexity of Palestinian cinema beyond stereotypes and cliches. Lastly, this course will also examine the political economy of Palestinian cinema by looking at the role of organizations and institutions such as A-level film festivals (Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, etc.), grassroots film festivals (in Boston, Chicago, Houston, London, Australia, etc.), the Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards, as well as streaming services such as Netflix, in making Palestinian cinema more widely available and more popular, and at what cost.

As the second part of the AC 697-698 sequence, this course addresses the linked and complex processes of research, interpretation, and writing. In AC 698 you’ll be working through four short assignments connected to your field of interest and to your particular research project. As we are working through these assignments, we will also be learning about and experimenting with different research methods, including archival research. Research and sources are at the heart of what we do as scholars, and they form the building blocks of our original contributions to our fields. Accordingly, we want to take some time to get better acquainted with archival research. The goal is not only to learn about locally available materials but also to better understand our relationship with archives, to understand what is there and not there and why, to gain practical skills for how to do archival work, and to recognize the ways in which archival research nearly always transforms projects in meaningful ways.

Coming soon…