Queers of Color: Subjects and Objects On-screen and Behind the Scenes

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Queers of Color: Subjects and Objects On-screen and Behind the Scenes

 

Mirasol Riojas, 2012’s Thinking Gender Coordinator, will be teaching a summer course, “Queers of Color: Subjects and Objects On-screen and Behind the Scenes,” at UCLA. This course is devoted to an analysis of representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identified people of color in documentary and narrative films and videos made by U.S-based and non-U.S.-based filmmakers. Students will consider the social and historical contexts in which the films and videos were made, as well as the texts’ functions as social and political tools, and artistic productions. One of the driving forces behind our analyses will be the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality, which informs the construction of identity and difference. Of particular interest will be the production of queer identities and the ways in which queer genders and sexualities are racialized, appropriated, and stereotyped, as well as the ways in which they subvert dominant understandings of queer subjects of color. Students will build a strong vocabulary of film terms that will aid in their analysis of film as a formal construct, which has the potential to shape and subvert dominant conceptions of personal and national identity.
Questions: mcgraw@humnet.ucla.edu, (310) 206-1145