ARTH 258 Asian/Pacific Cities in Film
In this course, we will explore the relationship between urban environments and cinema in the Asia Pacific region. We will begin by considering important developments in urbanism from the mid-19th century to the present day, including changes in technology and industrialization; race, class, and gender; immigration and national identity; politics, planning development, and environmental issues; and more. We then contextualize film theory in order to understand film's relationship to reality, the arts, and its viewers. We use a combination of the aforementioned theoretical toolkits to examine the depiction of cities set within India, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, Samoa, and Hawai'i. A variety of questions guide class lectures and discussions: How are cities represented in cinema? How do cinematic representations shape urban experience? Can cities in rapidly urbanizing regions of the world be experienced through their cinematic representations? How can concepts such as the "traditional" city be interrogated? How did modernist concepts regarding the city find expression in the Asia Pacific?