English 192-004
Popular Culture and Collective Memory
Instr: Gilberto Blasini
Office: CRT 487, 229-4540
e-mail: gblasini@uwm.edu
Office hours: by appointment.
Course Information: MW 2:30-3:45, Curtin 466
Course Description
This course focuses on media representations from, by, and about Caribbean artists and their societies. In specific, the course seeks to examine the role of film and video in relation to the emergence of contemporary cultural identities within the Caribbean context. A pursuit of this examination will provide a relevant revaluation of the current critical and theoretical perspectives of the Caribbean as a geocultural area and of the Caribbean and its culture, particularly cinema.
The social, political and cultural arenas of the Caribbean area have been undergoing undeniable change during the last 40 years. A new world economics, the decline of socialist nations, the availability of cheap video technologies and the slow but steady production of films (especially in the Minor Antilles), have extended and transformed some of the basic structures of the Caribbean society and culture. As a result, media arts are allowing the expression of hitherto silenced and marginalized voices that lay the groundwork for the emergence of alternative representations: new cultural identities.
The theoretical framework of the course will be constituted by a revision of some early cinematic manifestos written in the Caribbean (e.g., the post-revolution writings of Cubans filmmakers such as Julio García Espinosa and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea) as well as current historical and theoretical perspectives on the Caribbean and its artistic manifestations (e.g., writings by Maryse Condé, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, Antonio Benítez Rojo). Among other issues, the course will address the complexities of Caribbean.
Subjectivities (exploring issues of class, race, gender, and sexuality), as well as the dialogue between the formulation of national identities and discourses of Caribbeanness.
A partial list of films include: Almacita Di Desolato (Curaçao, Dir. Felix De Rooy, 1986), Ava & Gabriel (Curaçao, Dir. Felix De Rooy, 1989), The Harder They Come (Jamaica, Dir. Perry Henzel, 1973), Rue Cases-Nègres (Martinique, Dir. Euzhan Palcy, 1983), La última cena (Cuba, Dir. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1976), Daughters of the Dust (USA, Dir. Julie Dash, 1991), Santera (Venezuela, Dir. Sloveig Hoogesteijn, 1994), Quilombo (Brazil, Dir. Carlos Diegues, 1984), Xica da Silva (Brazil, Dir. Carlos Diegues, 1976), How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman (Brazil, Dir. Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1973), Jericó (Venezuela, Dir. Alberto Lamata, 1992), L'homme sur les quais (Haiti, Dir. Raul Peck, 1993), Brincando el charco (Puerto Rico, Dir. Frances Negrón-Muntaner, 1994), Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunts is Your Waffen (USA, Dir. Ela Troyano, 1993), Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (UK, Dir. Isaac Julien, 1996), Aimé Césaire: A voix pour l'histoire (Martinique, Dir. Euzhan Palcy, 1994), Lumumba: La morte du prophete (Haiti, Dir. Raoul Peck, 1993), Awara Soup (French Guyana, Dir. César Paes, 1995), and Black Is, Black Ain't (USA, Dir. Marlon Riggs, 1995).
