Special Topics:Utopia & Its Shadowlands

Course available by Permission of Instructor
only. The current age of Trump, Brexit, and
climate disaster have brought discourses of the
apocalypse into the U.S. and global mainstream.
To some, we have entered a dystopic shadowland of
alternative facts and fascist demagoguery. To
others, this is America at last showing its true
colors, the 'banality of evil' normalizing
alt-right populism. In the face of this, the
writer Junot Diaz has called for us to fight
despair by using 'radical hope' as a weapon. Some
have done just that: Black Lives Matter, the
Occupy movement, the Women's Marches and the
Standing Rock Sioux have led broad waves of
resistance, but the struggle is long and complex.


Can radical hope be a weapon of cinema? How might
we dream futures and parallel worlds that
articulate resistance, remedy and revolution? Is
imagining utopia a call to action or a fool's
paradise? "Utopia and Its Shadowlands" is an
investigation of utopic and dystopic art and
cinema, as well as a practicum for students' own
work investigating the dreamlands and purgatories
of the impossible. This is not science fiction in
the strict sense of the genre; rather, we will
look at manifestoes and movements, at imagined
and prophetic futures, at parallel worlds, and at
transformations and elevations of this world.
Most importantly, we will study cinemas of
resistance as models for filmmaking today,
including anti-colonial, feminist, queer,
satirical and underground works from Chris Marker
to Kidlat Tahimik, Lizzie Borden to Apitchatpong
Weerasethakul, Ben Rivers to Ciro Guerra, and
filmmaking collectives such as The Black Audio
Film Collective, the Anti-Banality Union and
Groupe Dziga Vertov.

In addition to screenings, discussion and
readings, students will complete two short
photo/video sketches and a final project
consisting of either a a short film/video work or
a critical, academic essay.