ENGL 6385: Gender and Genre in American Film

Return to Course Policies

Week 1
Film Noir and Genre Studies
01/08
Introduction to course, policies, and film challenges

In-class reading: Wright, "Genre Films and the Status Quo" (FGR 42-50)
Week 2

1/15
Martin Luther King Holiday - No Classes

Film: The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946)

Shot-by-shot due Tuesday, 1/16 by 5:00 pm (in lieu of posting)
Week 3

1/22
Film: The Lady of Shanghai (Welles, 1947)

Readings: Buscombe, "The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema" (FGR 12-26); Schrader, "Notes on Film Noir" (FGR 229-42); Harvey, "Woman's Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir" (WiFN 35-46)


Week 4

1/29
Film: Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)

Readings: Place, "Women in Film Noir" (WiFN 47-68); Johnston, "Double Indemnity" (WiFN 89-98); excerpt from Krutnick, "Film Noir and America in the 1940s" (WebCT)


Week 5


2/5
Film: Klute (Pakula, 1971)

Readings: Gledhill, "Klute 1: A Contemporary Film Noir and Feminist Criticism" (WiFN 20-34); Gledhill, "Klute 2: Feminism and Klute" (WiFN 99-114)


Week 6
2/12
Film: Basic Instinct (Verhoeven, 1992)

Readings: Stables, "The Postmodern Always Rings Twice: Constructing the Femme Fatale in 90s Cinema" (WiFN 164-82); Grant, "Experience and Meaning in Genre Films" (FGR 115-29)


Week 7
Horror and Gender Studies
2/19
Film: Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, 1935)

Readings: Berenstein, "'It Will Thrill You, It May Shock You, It Might Even Horrify You' " (DoD 117-142); Young, "Here Comes the Bride" (DoD 309-337)


Week 8

2/26 Film: Bram Stroker's Dracula (Coppola, 1992)

Readings: Wood, "Burying the Undead: The Use and Obselescence of Count Dracula" (DoD 364-78); Dika, "From Dracula--with Love" (DoD 388-400)


Week 10

3/5
Film: Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)

Readings: Williams, "When the Woman Looks" (DoD 15-34); Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (WebCT); Recommended: Lacan, "The mirror stage" (WebCT)


Week 11

3/12
Film: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)

Readings: Clover, "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film" (DoD 66-113)


March 19-24 Spring Break


Week 12

3/26
Film: Alien (Scott, 1979)

Readings: Creed, "Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection" (DoD 35-65); Doherty, "Gender, Genre, and the Aliens Trilogy" (DoD 181-99)


Week 13

4/02
Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)

Readings: Williams, "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess" (FGR 141-59); Kawin, "Children of the Light" (FGR 324-45)

Prospectus Due

Melodrama: The Gendered Genre
Week 14

4/09
Film: Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940)

Readings: Staiger, "Hybrid or Inbred" (FGR 185-99); Doane, "The 'Woman's Film': Possession and Address" (WebCT)


Week 15

4/16
Film: Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959)

Reading: Elsaesser, "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama" (FGR 366-95)


Week 16

4/23
Film: Ordinary People (Redford, 1980)

Reading: Lutz, "Men's Tears and the Roles of Melodrama" (WebCT)


5/02
Paper Due by 5:00 pm