Global Film as World History

This course traces the history of globalization through world cinema and uses film to study local histories in their transnational and global contexts. Is there an emergent world society or does friction shape relations between global and local institutions and cultures? Does globalization lead to a common dominant culture? Or do transnational social, political, and cultural movements contest cultural domination? Together we will watch and analyze movies from the Soviet Union, Algeria/Italy, Chile, Tunisia, Senegal, India, Lebanon, and Palestine to see how filmmakers from the margins of global capitalism have used film technology to tell their own stories about how their people live their lives in contexts of local and global change. This is a 6-week blended-online course. The class will meet in real-time online once a week on Wednesday afternoons to discuss our texts and movies in detail. You will also stream historical narrative movies from around the world from Western Libraries twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays). There will online discussions every Tuesday at students' convenience (asynchronously), and short film analysis papers due each Friday. Readings are divided across case histories (early week) and movie appreciation and analysis (mid-week & late week). Requirements for Credit: Faithful (online) attendance, preparation, and respectful, engaged participation; 5 personal discussion posts on movies' effects & 5 short movie analyses; a short research project - a paper or a video essay - analyzing another movie in historical and cinematic contexts; a Fairhaven self-evaluation. Course Texts: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. 2017. The History of Cinema: A Very Short Introduction. NY: Oxford University Press. Manfred Steger. 2017 Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. 4th Edition. New York: Oxford