In this course we will focus on postcolonial and global modernity as they are imagined through cinema. Foregrounding the concept of affect, we will consider topics such as: the role of mass affect as mass culture; nationalism, community, sentimentality, and nostalgia; film technology and film industry development as productive of a history of the senses; affect and the (gendered and racialized) subject and body, film genres and the development of postcolonial modernisms; style; cinephilia and the production of publics; representations of popular religiosity; and the relationship between feeling and ideology. We will examine films that suggest particular affective states. Our study will be interdisciplinary and readings will draw on fields of cinema, area studies, cultural studies as well as anthropology, philosophy, and history.
The Primary course number for this course is SAST610:401. Graduates will need permission from the instructor or the SAST Dept. coordinator before registering for this course.