FS30170

In the last twenty-five years “whiteness” has become a critical keyword in humanities scholarship. Entering into current debates about the nature and function of whiteness while maintaining both a historical and a critical focus, this course invites students to reflect on the cinematic fictions of whiteness while considering that category as hierarchical, contested and unstable

The module is designed to raise questions concerning the representation of a variety of ethnicities in American film from the silent cinema to the classical period and New Hollywood. Using a variety of films from as early as 1915 and as recent as 2008, we will examine depictions of ethnic identity (Irish, Italian, French, Hispanic, Polish, Greek, Arab, Jewish, etc.) and consider the ways ethnicity is claimed and disclaimed, repressed, romanticized and nostalgically rendered. We will look at the complex relationship between American popular culture and immigration and assimilation issues and investigate the ways ethnicity intersects with issues of genre, stardom, nationalism/citizenship, nostalgia and tourism.