Southeast Asia Film & Cinema: Courses & Syllabi

Gender and Sexuality in Southeast Asian Cinema examines the new cinemas of Southeast Asia and their engagement withcontemporary 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 to other forms of belonging. Focusing on globally circulating Southeast Asian films of the past 15 years, the course draws on current writings from 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 will be drawn from both mainstream and independent cinema and will include the work of directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Danny and Oxide Pang, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Yau Ching, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Garin Nugroho, and Jean-Jacques Annaud.

At the end of Indonesia on Screen, a student should be able to demonstrate a broad knowledge of key developments in Indonesian cinema since 1945. The student will have developed the ability to consider these films critically in terms of the historical and cultural context in which they have been created. Students will have learned how to analyse the films both visually and culturally.

With a specific focus on the four major nations of maritime Southeast Asia (Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia), Southeast Asia Literature & Film: Maritime Southeast Asia offers a general introduction to literary and cinematic production in the region, emphasizing themes of colonialism, nationalism, religion, gender, the environment, and multiculturalism. Why literature and film? By examining these creative forms of cultural production, we are exposed to how Southeast Asian voices represent and narrate themselves, their communities, their nations, and their histories.
 

The Contemporary Southeast Asian Cinema course is designed to introduce students to the dynamic and diverse film texts emerging from and about Southeast Asia. It examines how these texts imagine and image Southeast Asia and/or particular nations within the region. More specifically, the course focuses on the themes of urban spaces and memory/trauma as they operate within texts about Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste. The course reading material is designed to provide (1) theoretical insights, (2) general socio-cultural and/or political overviews, and (3) more specific analyses of film texts and/or filmmakers.