Undergraduate Course: Sexuality, Space and the Cinema (HIAR10139)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | How has cinema used space ¿ the space of the city, the space of of architecture ¿ to represent sexuality? The twentieth century bore witness to profound changes in the understanding, reception and representation of sex, sexuality and gender in the West, from the sexual revolution and second-wave feminism of the 1960s to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. This history is thoroughly intertwined with developments in the field of cinema, which has consistently served to both document and to reproduce sexual politics. This course surveys the visual representation of sex and sexuality in cinema, with a focus on how it has used urban and architectural settings to explore these themes. The focus is (mainly) film produced in the USA and in this period. The first half of the course has a particular emphasis on Hollywood production in the 1950s, especially Hitchcock and Wilder. The material will be viewed through a variety of feminist, Marxist, queer and psychoanalytic theoretical lenses, as well as the ways architectural theory has dealt with sexuality and space. |
| Course description |
Indicative topics and films.
1. Introduction to theories of film, sexuality and space. Introduction to course and key topics.
2. Cinematic city: the city, architectural space, and the construction of sexuality. Los Angeles as case study. Films include Sunset Boulevard (dir. Billy Wilder, 1950)
3. Melodrama. Films include Mildred Pierce (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1945)
4. The male gaze. Films include Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) 5. Femme fatale. Films include Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954), Basic Instinct (dir. Paul Verhoeven, 1992)
6. Domesticity under attack. Films include The Birds (dir. Alfred Hitchcock 1963)
7. Domestic space. Films include Jeanne Dielman (dir. Chantal Akerman, 1975)
8. Sex work. Films include Midnight Cowboy (dir. John Schlesinger, 1969) 9. Black Masculinity. Films include: She's Gotta Have It (dir. Spike Lee, 1986), Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016)
10. Queer space. Films include: Paris Is Burning
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- demonstrate a good understanding of key developments in cinema since the mid-20th Century, particularly as pertaining to sex and sexuality.
- use contemporary theories of sexuality with confidence in relation to the topic.
- think critically about cinema, and its depictions of sex and sexuality, and to analyse and assess films verbally and in writing.
- analyse, read and critique cinema, and to adapt art-historical methods to the study of film.
- show the capacity to research, structure and present their own arguments and methodological positions independently.
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Reading List
Buscombe et.al, Edward. The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, Mulvey, Laura. ¿Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema¿. Screen 16, no. 3 (1975): 6¿18.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.
hooks, bell. Reel to Real: Race, Class and Sex at the Movies. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Nelmes, Jill, ed. Introduction to Film Studies. 5th ed. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Tasker, Yvonne. Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1998.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
The class will be taught through weekly 2-hour seminars, accompanied by a screening programme, showing key films from the course. |
| Keywords | Sexuality,space,cinema,film,city |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Richard Williams
Tel: (0131 6)51 6792
Email: R.J.Williams@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Sue Cavanagh
Tel: (0131 6)51 1460
Email: Sue.Cavanagh@ed.ac.uk |
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