One of the few film courses not in the VES department, Visiting Lecturer Isaac Julien's class Afro-American Studies 187y: "Black Cinema as Genre--From Blaxploitation to Quentin Tarantino" takes on Hollywood to explore how black people have appeared in movies.
"It focuses on the use of stereotypes and hyperbole in the genre of Blaxploitation cinema in the 1970s and explores how this genre has been appropriated by 1990s directors...and critiqued by others," according to the syllabus.
Gender, sexism and homophobia are themes of the class, which compares works ranging from Sweet Sweetback's "Baadassss Song" to Menace II Society.
The week after each screening, students must hand in an analysis of the film at section. And there is some required reading as well--cinematic titles like Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film and Quentin Tarantino/Interviews.
Julien has had an accomplished career in cinema himself, with work displayed at numerous museums and film festivals.
Maybe lecture will be no day at the movies, but it could come pretty close.
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