| As we explore these themes––auditory travels, personal histories, intersections, grand narratives, media and transmission––throughout the course, it might be useful to keep some of these questions in mind as you attempt to seek your own answers to them: What is the relationship between culture and political reality? Does “Chinese culture” mean the same thing to the people living in these various locales? Why have these films become classics, and what impact have the critical interventions of these filmmakers had on the Chinese-speaking world, if any? Are these preoccupations unique to Chinese societies? |
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| topic Discussion/Production |
| Discussion |
| Lecturing |
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| Written Presentation |
| Attendance |
| Oral Presentation |
| Assignment |
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| Week |
Course Content |
| Week 1 |
Course Introduction |
| Week 2 |
Whither Chinese-language Cinema
9/17
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 |
History as Grand Narratives
9/24
Required Reading
Wendy Larson. “The Concubine and the Figure of History: Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine.” Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. Ed. Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1997. 331–346.
Recommended Reading
Jerome Silbergeld. “A Farewell to Arts: Allegory Goes to the Movies.” China into Film: Frames of Reference in Contemporary Chinese Cinema. London: Reaktion Books, 1999. 96–131.
Recommended Viewing
Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)
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| Week 4 |
Guest Lecture
10/1 Jason Lim
Independent Scholar
“Cold War Aesthetics: the Kuomintang’s Involvement in Southeast Asia.” |
| Week 5 |
Film Art: An Introduction
10/8
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| Week 6 |
Personal Histories
10/15
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 7 |
The Happy Family?
10/22
Required Reading
Wah Guan Lim. “To Dream, at What Price? Interrogating “Success” in Singapore Dreaming.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 51.1 (March 2025): 63–90.
Recommended Reading
Kenneth Paul Tan. “One-Dimensional Singapore.” Cinema and Television in Singapore: Resistance in One Dimension. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2008. 1–36.
Recommended Viewing
Singapore Dreaming (Woo Yenyen and Colin Goh, 2006). |
| Week 8 |
Workshop
10/29
Seminar participants are strongly encouraged to participate in the “Trans-ing Borders: Cultural Performance and Identity Formation in a Fractured World” Workshop held on Oct 29–30. |
| Week 9 |
Mid-term Break
11/5 |
| Week 10 |
Auditory Travels and Globalization
11/12
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 11 |
Intersections
11/19
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 12 |
A “Sinophone” Director
11/26
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 13 |
Media and Transmission
12/3
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 14 |
Class Presentation
12/10
Provide a 15-min in-class oral presentation of your final essay topic. |
| Week 15 |
Essay Workshop
12/17
Bring 3 hard copies of your final paper drafts (double-spaced, type-written) to class. |
| Week 16 |
Essay Due
12/24 |
self-directed
learning |
01.Participation in professional forums, lectures, and corporate sharing sessions related to industry-government-academia-research exchange activities.
05.Participation in various workshops organized by different departments of NCHU.
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