English 316-001
World Cinema: Caribbean Cinema
Instr: Blasini, Gilberto
Office: CRT 487; 229-4540
e-mail: gblasini@uwm.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information: MW; 4:30-7:20pm; CRT 104
Course Description
This course focuses on media representations from, by, and about Caribbean people, their societies and cultures. In specific, the course seeks to examine the role of cinema 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, historical, and theoretical perspectives of the Caribbean as a geocultural area and of its cinematic practices. The course's theoretical framework emphasizes current historical and theoretical perspectives on the Caribbean (particularly ideas related to hybridity and créolité) and its artistic manifestations (e.g., writings by Maryse Condé, Patrick Chamoiseau, Stuart Hall, Antonio Benítez Rojo). The first part of the course addresses cinema's role in the critical reconfiguration of the area's history (particularly in relation to colonialism and imperialism).The course's second part concentrates on representations of Caribbean societies from the 1970s onwards. In addition, the class examines the complexities of Caribbean subjectivities (particularly issues of age, race, class, gender, and sexuality), as well as the dialogue between the formulation of national identities and discourses of Caribbeanness.
