This paper is available for the academic year 2025-26 at Part II.
This comparative paper aims to explore pressing political, aesthetic, theoretical and historical questions regarding the nature of cinematic representation. Examining fiction, documentary, mainstream and experimental moving image practice, from 1945 onwards, the paper will engage with a range of issues such as gender and sexuality, race, labour, capitalism, digitality, biopolitics and ecologies. It will address topics including trauma and historical memory, decolonisation (particularly Third Cinema in its Latin American and African iterations), political filmmaking in various contexts (Black, feminist, queer, trans), cinematic representations of AIDS/HIV, and contemporary explorations of identity, disability, precarity and crisis.
The scope of the paper is global. While the major language areas covered will be French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian and English, students are encouraged to adopt a global, comparative approach that explores such material alongside cinemas in other languages.
The paper is divided into seven key topics:
- Trauma and decolonisation
- Gender and sexuality
- Labour and class
- Migration and Diaspora
- Cinema of crisis
- Disability
- Ecologies
The paper begins with an introductory lecture on the history of political cinema.
There is a list of suggested (rather than prescribed) films for each topic. Information on the topics, films and suggested reading can be found in the 听(on Moodle, requires Raven login).
The paper encourages a global, comparative approach. Students writing about European film are encouraged to bring听this material into contact with cinemas beyond Europe.
Robin Blaetz,听Women鈥檚 Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks听(2007)
Dipesh Chakrabarty,听Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference听(2008 [2000])
Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, 鈥楥inema/Ideology/Criticism鈥� (1969)
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963)
Silvia Federici, Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (2019)
Michel Foucault,听Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Colle虁ge de France, 1975鈥�76, trans. D. Macey, ed. M. Bertani and A. Fontana (2003)
Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover,听Queer Cinema in the World听(2016)
Jack Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (2005)
bell hooks,听Black Looks: Race and Representation听(2015 [1992])
Laura U. Marks,听Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image听(2015)
Karl Marx,听鈥楾he Labour Process鈥�, in听Capital, Vol. I, trans. Ben听Fowkes (1990), pp. 283-292.
Judith Mayne, The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and Women鈥檚 Cinema (1990)
Achille Mbembe,听Necropolitics听(2019)
Robert McRuer (ed), 鈥楥ripping Cinema and Media Studies鈥�,听Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 58:4 (Summer 2019),听
Laura Mulvey,听鈥榁isual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema鈥� (1975)
Anat Pick and Guinevere Narraway (eds),听Screening Nature: Cinema Beyond the Human听(2013)
An铆bal Quijano, 鈥楥oloniality and Modernity/Rationality鈥�, in Mignolo and Escobar (eds),听Globalization and the Decolonial Option听(2010), pp. 22-32.
Jacques Ranci猫re,听The Politics of Aesthetics听(2004)
Steven Shaviro,听Post Cinematic Affect听(2010)
Ella Shohat, Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices (2006)
Ella听Shohat听and Robert听Stam,听Unthinking听Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media听(1994)
Fernando听Solanas听and听Octavio听Getino, 鈥楾owards a Third Cinema鈥� (1970)
Eliza Steinbock,听Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change听(2019)
The paper will be taught through a combination of lectures and supervisions. Students should cover at least 5-6 of the topics listed above in their supervisions. They will usually work with one supervisor across the year.
Supervisory arrangements are centrally organised and communicated to students at the start of the Michaelmas Term.
For the CS7 Moodle site, please see (will require Raven sign-in)
The examination paper will be divided into seven sections, according to the seven topics taught, with two essay questions available per topic. Students write three essays in response to questions drawn from three different sections.
Each answer should be comparative across at least two different language areas (which may include English). Scripts as a whole must engage substantially with at least two different language areas (excluding English).
Optional Dissertations should also engage substantially with at least two different language areas (excluding English).
Past examination papers can be found here (but please note the new format, as described above):听
Dr Laura McMahon |
