KOREAN CINEMA

ASIAN 254

Critically engages with Korean popular culture in order to explore how an arena often dismissed as "mere entertainment" can act as an indicator of cultural values and a producer of cultural meaning. Treats works of popular culture as important economic, political, and social texts and asks us to reflect on how the production and consumption of popular culture shapes, and is shaped by, our lived experiences. Explores what popular culture says about society and, conversely, what society says about popular culture.

HISTORY 340

The culture and society of Korea have evolved hand in hand with the country's transformation from the Choson dynasty, a relatively isolated Confucian kingdom built on an agrarian economy, to South Korea and North Korea, two modern, industrialized nation-states in the globalized present. Explores key aspects of Korea's great cultural and social transformation from the 15th century to the 21st century. Delves into recent studies on gender history and on the constructed notion of "national culture." Also analyzes primary sources from different historical periods, as well as cinematic representations of Korea's past and present.

COMARTS 461

In the wake of World War Two, European directors began making films that employed location shooting, ambiguity, psychological realism, and unfamiliar stylistic flourishes. Such films drew on literary modernism, experimenting with time shifting, extreme duration, subjectivity, and reflexivity. "Art cinema," as it came to be called, is now the dominant storytelling mode of the contemporary film festival circuit and constitutes a robust alternative to mainstream genre cinema. Explores art cinema from a variety of national and transnational contexts, analyzing its narratives, styles, and cultural contexts. Investigates the work of directors from the first generation of art cinema, including Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, and Agnès Varda, and more recent work by Aki Kaurismäki, Abbas Kiarostami, Wong Kar-wai, and Claire Denis.

ASIAN 375

A historical narrative of Chinese-language film from the turn of the century to contemporary China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. All films include English subtitles. No knowledge of Chinese language is required. Not open to students with credit for E ASIAN 520 prior to Fall 2019.

ASIAN/HISTORY 108

Survey of major cultural, social, political, and intellectual developments in Korea from the 10th century to the 21st century.