ENGL 200 D: Reading Literary Forms

Autumn Quarter 2015
Course: ENGL 200 D
Instructor: UNGSAN KIM
Queer Mobility in Contemporary Film and Literature

What happens, when queer sexuality, queer culture, and queer people migrate through different spaces and sometimes through different times? And why and how do queer bodies move either nationally or transnationally? In this course, we will explore the different modes of queer mobility in contemporary film and literature. As the commonly used terms such as coming out, outing, or cruising already connote the movement or transformation of bodies or ideas, the issue of mobility is one of the most interesting topics in queer literary and cinema studies.

By reading and watching contemporary queer canons, we could for instance investigate how the formation of modern metropolitan culture (in contrast to that of a small town) has both nurtured and criminalized queer lives, how mobility has re-conceptualized queer experience, how the experiences of immigrants have contributed to the alternative queer cultures, and how literary and cinematic works of art have responded to this queer mobility. We could also discuss the concept of queerness by exploring these questions: what exactly are queer literature and queer cinema?; how do they differ from more commonly called Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender literature and film?; and what critical potentiality does our "queer" viewpoint on both literature and cinema have?

In addition, we will also practice how to analyze film. Cinema has its own language and style, and we will learn to appreciate the cinematic aesthetics through viewing and analyzing a film scene by scene, or sequence by sequence. Basic terminology for film analysis and its proper usage will be taught in the middle of the quarter.

This course fulfills the "W" requirements, and thus requires students to read and write intensively. Along with two main projects (midterm and final), there will be other short writing assignments.

Readings will include:
Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters (Required / ISBN: 978-0140149043)
Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (Required / ISBN: 978-1559363846)
Jeanette Winterson's "All I Know about Gertrude Stein"
Yiyun Li's "The Princess of Nebraska"

Tentative Film list is as follows:
Happy Together (1997 / dir. Wong Kar-wai)
3 Needles (2005 / dir. Thom Fitzgerald)
Stateless Things (2011 / dir. Kim Kyung-mook)
Appropriate Behavior (2014 / dir. Desiree Akhavan)

Note 1: Students should be prepared to spend additional two hours biweekly watching the assigned films. Most films will be affordable through the UW library course reserve or Netflix. For some Asian queer films, I will arrange an extra screening session.

Note 2: This class does not require students to have prior knowledge of queer theory, or LGBT, gender and sexuality studies.