ASIAN 6631 - Gender and Sexuality in Southeast Asian Cinema

(crosslisted) COML 6651, FGSS 6331, LGBT 6331, RELST 6631

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with ASIAN 4451/COML 4451/FGSS 4451/LGBT 4451/PMA 4451/RELST 4451.

A. Fuhrmann.

Examines the new cinemas of Southeast Asia and their engagement with contemporary discourses of gender and sexuality. It pays special attention to the ways in which sexuality and gendered embodiment are at present linked to citizenship and other forms of belonging and to how the films draw on Buddhist and Islamic traditions of representation and belief. Focusing on globally circulating Southeast Asian films of the past 15 years, the course draws on current writings in feminism, Buddhist studies, affect theory, queer studies, postcolonial theory, and film studies to ask what new understandings of subjectivity might emerge from these cinemas and their political contexts. Films are drawn from both mainstream and independent cinema and will include the work of directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Danny and Oxide Pang, Yau Ching, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Garin Nugroho, and Jean-Jacques Annaud. (SC)