Queer Cinema and Visual Culture

Readings and Films

SES#	TOPICS	READINGS AND FILMS
1	Introduction and overview Screening:  The Celluloid Closet. Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. Color and Black and White, 104 min. 1996.	No readings or films assigned
I. Pre-Stonewall & the Hollywood Production Code: The Making of a Gay Subtext
2	Before Stonewall / Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria Screening: Excerpts from Before Stonewall. Directed by Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg. Color and Black and White, 87 min. 1985. Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. Directed by Victor Silverman and Susan Stryker. Color, 57 min. 2005. Discussion of pre-Stonewall cultural climate and what makes a text “queer” (Cather, Hall, Sedgwick)	Read: Cather, Willa Sibert “Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament.” McClure’s Magazine 25 (1905): 74–83. Hall, Radclyffe. “Miss Oglivy Finds Herself.” In The Penguin Book of First World War Stories. Edited and introduced by Barbara Korte. Penguin Classics, 2007. ISBN: 9780141442150.  Lee, Hermione. “Willa Cather: A Hidden Voice.” New York Review of Books, July 11, 2013. Willa Cather, Wikipedia. Radclyffe Hall, Wikipedia.
3	Discussion: Rope. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Color, 80 min. 1948.	View: Rope Read: Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. “Epistemology of the Closet.” Chapter 1 in Epistemology of the Closet. University of California Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780520254060. [Preview with Google Books] Foucault, Michel. “We ‘Other Victorians’.” Part 1 in The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. Translated from the French by Robert Hurley. Vintage, 1990. ISBN: 9780679724698. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “The Incitement to Discourse.” Part 2, Chapter 1 in The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. Translated from the French by Robert Hurley. Vintage, 1990. ISBN: 9780679724698. [Preview with Google Books] Miller, D.A. “Anal Rope.” Representations 32 (1990): 114–33. Doty, Alexander. “There’s Something Queer Here.” Chapter 1 in Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780816622450. [Preview with Google Books] Barrios, Richard. “Dark Passages.” Chapter 9 in Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall. Routledge, 2005, pp. 208–212. ISBN: 9780415923293.
4	Discussion: The Children’s Hour. Directed by William Wyler. Black and White, 108 min. 1961.	View: The Children’s Hour Read: White, Patricia. “Reading the Code(s).” Chapter 1 in Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability. Indiana University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780253213457. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “Lesbian Cinephilia” Chapter 2 in Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability. Indiana University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780253213457. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “Notes for Chapters 1 and 2.” In Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability. Indiana University Press, 1999, pp. 218–19. ISBN: 9780253213457.  Mennel, Barbara. “Camp: Where Trash Meets Art.” Chapter 2 in Queer Cinema: Schoolgirls, Vampires, and Gay Cowboys. Wallflower Press, 2012, pp. 30–36. ISBN: 9780231163132. [Preview with Google Books] Hadleigh, Boze. “School Days: The Children’s Hour and Thérèse and Isabelle.” Chapter 4 in The Lavender Screen: The Gay and Lesbian Films: Their Stars, Makers, Characters, and Critics. Citadel, 2001. ISBN: 9780806521992. [Preview with Google Books]  “Appendix 1: The Motion Picture Production Code (as Published 31 March, 1930).” (PDF - 1.2MB)
II. Looking Back: Representing a Queer Past
5	Discussion: The Danish Girl. Directed by Tom Hooper. Color, 119 min. 2016.	View: The Danish Girl Read: Hilton-Morrow, Wendy, and Kathleen Battles. “Visibility.” Chapter 3 in Sexual Identities and the Media: An Introduction. Routledge, 2015. ISBN: 9780415532976. [Preview with Google Books] Scott, A.O. “Review: ‘The Danish Girl,’ About a Transgender Pioneer,” New York Times, November 26, 2015. Debruge, Peter. “Venice Film Review: ‘The Danish Girl’.” Variety, September 5, 2015. Hornaday, Ann. “Movie Review: ‘The Danish Girl’ is a Pretty Picture about a Transgender Pioneer,” Washington Post, December 10, 2015.
6	Discussion: Carol. Directed by Todd Haynes. Color, 118 min. 2016.	View: Carol Read: Highsmith, Patricia. The Price of Salt (aka Carol). Dover Publications, 2015. ISBN: 9780486800295. [Preview with Google Books] Foote, Stephanie. “Deviant Classics: Pulps and the Making of Lesbian Print Culture.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 31, no. 1 (2005): 169–90. White, Patricia. “Sketchy Lesbians: Carol as History and Fantasy.” Film Quarterly 69, no. 2 (2015): 8–18. Butler, Judith. “Critically Queer.” (PDF - 1.8MB) GLQ 1, no. 1 (1993): 17–32. Hilton-Morrow, Wendy, and Kathleen Battles. Excerpt from Sexual Identities and the Media: An Introduction. Routledge, 2015. ISBN: 9780415532976. [Preview with Google Books]
7	Discussion: _Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic_	View: Inked / An Interview with Alison Bechdel. Vimeo. Alison Bechdel on the Origin of the Bechtel Test. “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” July 29, 2015. NBC. Alison Bechdel, Author of ‘Are You My Mother?’ - WSJ Interview. YouTube. Listen: In the Trump Era, Comics Become a Protest Tool. The Takeaway. December 1, 2016. New York Public Radio. Read: Bechdel, Alison. “Old Father, Old Artificer.” Chapter 1 in Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Mariner Books, 2007. ISBN: 9780618871711. [Preview with Google Books]
8	Representations of AIDS & Black Masculinity Discussion: Philadelphia. Directed by Jonathan Demme. Color, 125 min. 1994. Screening and discussion: Tongues Untied. Directed by Marlon Riggs. Color, 55 min. 1989. Final paper / project guidelines	View: Philadelphia Read: Farmer, Brett. “The Fabulous Sublimity of Gay Diva Worship.” In Camera Obscura. Edited by Abelardo Morell. Bulfinch, 2004. ISBN: 9780821277515.  Dyer, Richard. “Seen to be Believed: Some Problems in the Representation of Gay People as Typical.” Chapter 4 in The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations. 2nd edition. Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 9780415254953. [Preview with Google Books] Treichler, Paula A. “AIDS, Homophobia, and Biomedical Discourse: An Epidemic of Signification.” October 43 (1987): 31–70. Hallas, Roger. “Queer Anachronism and the Testimonial Space of Song.” Chapter 4 in Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer Moving Image. Duke University Press Books 2, 2009. ISBN: 9780822346012.
III. New Queer Cinema
9	Discussion: Paris Is Burning. Directed by Jennie Livingston. Color, 71 min. 1991.	View: Paris Is Burning. Read: Hilderbrand, Lucas. “Introduction: Love is the Message.” In Paris Is Burning. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781551525198. [Preview with Google Books]  ———. “Got to Be Real (The Film).” Chapter 1 in Paris Is Burning. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781551525198. [Preview with Google Books] Butler, Judith. “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion.” Chapter 4 in Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge, 2011. ISBN: 9780415610155.  Wallenberg, Louise. “New Black Queer Cinema.” Chapter 10 in New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader. Edited by Michele Aaron. Rutgers University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780813534862. Contreras, Daniel T. “New Queer Cinema: Spectacle, Race, Utopia.” Chapter 9 in New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader. Edited by Michele Aaron. Rutgers University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780813534862.  Halkitis, PhD, MS, Perry N. “Discrimination and Homophobia Fuel the HIV Epidemic in Gay and Bisexual Men.” Psychology and AIDS Exchange Newsletter, April 2012. hooks, bell. “Is Paris Burning?” Chapter 9 in Black Looks: Race and Representation. 2nd edition. Routledge, 2014. ISBN: 9781138821552.
10	Discussion: Camp	Read: Sontag, Susan. “Notes On ‘Camp’.” 1964. Mulkey, Annemarie. “Camping Out, Creating Trouble: Visual Elements of But I’m a Cheerleader.” Chapter 2 in Queering Culture: Confounding and Troubling Heteronormativity Through Critical Queer Identities in Literature, Film, and Music. Thesis, the University of Texas at San Antonio. May 2010.  Newton, Esther. “Selection from Mother Camp.” Chapter 9 in The Transgender Studies Reader. Edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. Routledge, 2006. ISBN: 9780415947091.
11	Discussion: The Watermelon Woman. Directed by Cheryl Dunye. Color, 90 min. 1997.	View: The Watermelon Woman Read: Davis, Nick. “‘Something in Her Face’: Queering the Affection-Image in The Watermelon Woman.” Chapter 3 in The Desiring-Image: Gilles Deleuze and Contemporary Queer Cinema. Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780199993161. [Preview with Google Books]  Rich, B. Ruby. “What’s a Good Gay Film?” Chapter 4 in New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut. Duke University Press Books, 2013. ISBN: 9780822354284. [Preview with Google Books]  ———. “Historical Fictions, Modern Desires.” Chapter 8 in New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut. Duke University Press Books, 2013. ISBN: 9780822354284. [Preview with Google Books] Mennel, Barbara. “New Queer Cinema: A New Aesthetic Language.” Chapter 4 in Queer Cinema: Schoolgirls, Vampires, and Gay Cowboys. Wallflower Press, 2012, pp. 90–93. ISBN: 9780231163132.  Juhasz, Alexandra. “A Stake in the Future: Transforming Queer Cinema, Staying Dissonant.” Chapter 11 in Coming Out to the Mainstream: New Queer Cinema in the 21st Century. Edited by JoAnne C. Juett and David M. Jones. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. ISBN: 9781443823791.  hooks, bell. “The Oppositional Gaze” Chapter 7 in Black Looks: Race and Representation. 2nd edition. Routledge, 2014. ISBN: 9781138821552.
IV. Contemporary Queer, Contemporary Trans
12	Discussion: Free CeCe! Directed by Jacqueline Gares. Color, 100 min. 2018.	View: Free CeCe!
13	Discussion: Sense8. Color, 60 min. episodes. 2015–2018. New directions in streaming TV	View: Sense8 Read: Keegan, Cáel M. “Tongues Without Bodies: The Wachowskis’ Sense8.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 3, nos. 3–4 (2016): 605–10.