CPLT

GLOBAL CINEMAS: FILM, CULTURE, AND TRANSNATIONAL POLITICS examines how filmmakers from Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa engage with the enduring challenges of (neo)colonialism, imperialism, national and international politics, corruption, cultural traditions, exile, and other defining conditions of the postcolonial moment. The course invites students to analyze the aesthetic strategies through which filmmakers critique external domination while also interrogating internal social, political, and cultural contradictions within their societies. Organized comparatively, the course moves across regions—beginning with Asia, then turning to the Caribbean, and concluding with Africa—in order to foreground both transnational connections and regional divergences in the global circulation of cinema and political histories. Weekly discussions will focus on how cinematic form and popular culture function as sites of critique, negotiation, and resistance, enabling students to develop a critical understanding of the dynamic relationship between art, politics, and history. Students will produce a weekly reaction video, to be uploaded to their individual YouTube channels, as part of their ongoing engagement with the course materials.