América Latina Errante: Displacement, Globalization, Melancholy in Latin American Cinema
Instructor: Alessandra Santos
Language of instruction: Spanish
This seminar aims to examine contemporary Latin American cinema under the lens of displacements. We will study the geographical, cultural and subjective dislocations that occur due to economic and political globalization after 1990, migration, (im)mobility, tensions and conflicts that arise from these processes. Topics to be examined: diasporas; wandering (literal and metaphorical); consumption; ubiquitous presence of media, impact of cyber technological developments; violence; dissolution and construction of borders; new subjectivities; gender, sexuality and body; melancholy and humour. We will discuss a variety of films in their social, economic and political contexts and complexities. We will study how diverse films confront multiple discourses surrounding displacements in the hemisphere.
List of required films (available streaming through Koerner’s Library):
- The Couple in the Cage (1993). Paula Heredia and Coco Fusco
- Bolivia (1999). Israel Adrián Caetano
- Amores Perros (2000). Alejandro G. Iñárritu
- Transborder Immigrant Tool (2007). Ricardo Domínguez
- La mujer sin cabeza (2008). Lucrecia Martel
- Sleep Dealer (2008). Alex Rivera
- Sin Nombre (2009). Cary Joji Fukunaga
- The Famous and the Dead (2009). Esmir Filho
- La Playa DC (2012). Juan Andrés Arango
- Il Futuro (2013). Alicia Scherson
- Futuro Beach (2014). Karim Aïnouz
- X500 (2016). Juan Andrés Arango
List of required and suggested critical texts:
- Bishnupriya Ghosh. “The Cinema of Displacement: Towards a Politically Motivated Poetics” (1995)
- Néstor García Canclini. La globalización imaginada (1999) (selection)
- Aníbal Quijano. “Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America” (2000)
- John Urry. Mobilities (2007) (selections)
- Fernando Aínsa “Palabras nómadas: los nuevos centros de la periferia” (2010)
- Daniel Quirós “La época está en desorden”: reflexiones sobre la temporalidad en Bolivia de Adrián Caetano y La mujer sin cabeza de Lucrecia Martel” (2010)
- Cecilia Sosa. “A Counter-narrative of Argentine Mourning: The Headless Woman (2008), directed by Lucrecia Martel” (2010)
- Jean Philippe Clot y Heidi Elizabeth Aguilar Pérez. “Una mirada a las representaciones cinematográficas de las regiones fronterizas en México” (2012)
- Carlos Fino. “La Playa DC: intersecciones cartográficas de la ciudad invisible” (2013)
- Markus Heide. “Cosmopolitics in Border Film: Amores Perros (2000) and Sleep Dealer (2008)” (2013)
- Mimi Sheller. “Mobilities and Displacement” (2020)
- Peter Adey, et al. The Handbook of Displacement (2020) (short selections)