| Week |
Course Content |
| Week 1 |
Course Introduction |
| Week 2 |
Whither Chinese-language cinema
Required Reading
Sheldon H. Lu and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, “Introduction: Mapping the Field of Chinese-Language Cinema”, in Sheldon H. Lu and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh (eds), Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005, pp. 1-24.
Recommended Reading
Song Hwee Lim, “Six Chinese Cinemas in Search of a Historiography”, in Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward (eds.), The Chinese Cinema Book. London: BFI Publishing and New York: Bloomsbury, 2020, pp. 42-51.
Recommended Viewing
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000) |
| Week 3 |
New Directions in Transnational Asian Studies I
9/25 Guest speaker: Petrus Liu (Boston University)
Respondent: Eno Chen (National Chengchi University)
Topic
“The Specter of Materialism: Queer Theory and Marxism in the Age of the Beijing Consensus” |
| Week 4 |
Language and identity
10/2
Required Reading
Rey Chow, “Autumn Hearts: Filming Feminine ‘Psychic Interiority’ in Song of the Exile,” Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films. 2007. 85–124.
Recommended Reading
Sheldon Lu Hsiao-peng, “Diaspora, Citizenship, Nationality: Hong Kong and 1997.” China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. 104–112; 116–121.
Recommended Viewing
Song of the Exile (Ann Hui, 1990) |
| Week 5 |
Personal Histories
10/9
Required Reading
Jerome Silbergeld, “Body Visible: In the Heat of the Sun (Yangguang canlan de rizi).” Body in Question: Image and Illusion in Two Chinese Films by Director Jiang Wen. Princeton, NJ: P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University in association with Princeton University Press, 2008.
Recommended Reading
Wendy Larson, “Extracting the Revolutionary Spirit: Jiang Wen’s In the Heat of the Sun and Anchee Min’s Red Azalea.” From Ah Q to Lei Feng : Freud and Revolutionary Spirit in 20th Century China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009. 155–96.
Recommended Viewing
In the Heat of the Sun (Jiang Wen, 1994). |
| Week 6 |
Auditory travels and globalization
10/16
Required Reading
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 2008. 54-64; 275-287.
Recommended Reading
Kenneth Chan, "Goodbye Dragon Inn: Tsai Ming-liang's Political Aesthetics of Nostalgia, Place, and Lingering.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 1, no. 2 (2007): 89-103.
Recommended Viewing
Goodbye Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming Liang, 2003).
Scene analysis exercise: sight and sound |
| Week 7 |
Media and transmission
10/23
Required Reading
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 2008. 138-166.
Ackbar Abbas, “Culture in a Space of Disappearance,” Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance, University of Minnesota Press, 1997: 1-15.
Recommended Reading
Siu Leung Li, "Kung Fu: Negotiating Nationalism and Modernity." Cultural Studies 15 (3/4) 2001, 515-542.
Cheung, Mabel (張婉婷) – Hong Kong Women Filmmakers (wordpress.com)
Recommended Viewing
Painted Faces (Mabel Cheung and Alex Ng, 1988)
Scene analysis exercise: mise-en-scene |
| Week 8 |
Midterm assignment
10/30
Seminar participants are strongly encouraged to attend the conference “Planetary Cinema” held on Nov 1–2. |
| Week 9 |
Intersections
11/6
Required Reading
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 2008. 244-257.
Decade: Wong Kar-wai on “In The Mood For Love” (indiewire.com)
Recommended Reading
Audrey Yue, “In The Mood for Love: Intersections of Hong Kong Modernity.” In Chris Berry (ed.), Chinese Film in Focus: 25 New Takes, British Film Institute: 128-136.
Recommended Viewing
In The Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai, 2000)
Scene analysis exercise: editing |
| Week 10 |
A “Sinophone” director
11/13
Required Reading
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 2008. 257-286.
Recommended Reading
Adrian Yuen, “‘Beyond Multiculturalism’: The Malaysian Postethnic Cosmopolitan Cinema,” Malaysian Cinema in the New Millennium: Transcendence Beyond Multiculturalism, 100-157.
Recommended Viewing
Sepet (Yasmin Ahmad, 2005)
Scene analysis exercise: editing |
| Week 11 |
Chinese-language Not Enough
11/20
Required Reading
Song Hwee Lim, “15: The Singapore Failure Story, ‘Slanged Up’”, in Chris Berry (ed.), Chinese Films in Focus II. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, and London: BFI Publishing, 2008, pp. 9-16.
Recommended Reading
Song Hwee Lim, “The Voice of the Sinophone,” in Audrey Yue and Olivia Khoo (eds.), Sinophone Cinemas. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 62-76.
Recommended Viewing
15 (Royston Tan, 2003) |
| Week 12 |
New Directions in Transnational Asian Studies II
11/27
Guest speaker: Nick Admussen (Cornell University)
Topic
“Writing for Academic Publication.” |
| Week 13 |
Digital Poetics
12/4
Required Reading
Song Hwee Lim, “Can Poetics Break Bricks?”, in Gary Bettinson and James Udden (eds.), The Poetics of Chinese Cinema. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 147-165.
Recommended Reading
Song Hwee Lim, “Walking in the City, Slowly: Spectacular Temporal Practices in Tsai Ming-liang’s ‘Slow Walk, Long March’ Series”. Screen 58, no. 2 (2017): 180-196.
Recommended Viewing
Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) |
| Week 14 |
Temporality
12/11
Required Reading
Song Hwee Lim, “Domesticating Time: Gendered Temporalities in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Café Lumière”. Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 10, no. 1 (2016): 36-57.
Recommended Reading
Song Hwee Lim, “Stillness”, in Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014, pp. 77-115.
Recommended Viewing
Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2003) |
| Week 15 |
Class Presentation
12/18
Provide a 10-min in-class oral presentation of your final essay topic. |
| Week 16 |
Essay Workshop
12/25
Bring 3 hard copies of your final paper drafts (double-spaced, type-written) to class |
| Week 17 |
Self-directed learning
1/1 New Year’s Holiday |
| Week 18 |
Essay Due |
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