This course explores the cultural, aesthetic, technological, and political category of “Black cinema.” Across the diaspora, Black cinema is an artistic praxis that utilizes techniques like improvisation and collaboration in order to make and remake the cinematic archive. The films and filmmakers in this category intervene in cinematic histories by responding to exclusionary narratives, technologies, and critical discourse by imagining alternative stories, spaces, and temporalities. Thus, these films help articulate both the pervasiveness of anti-blackness in our visual culture and help us understand the difference (film) aesthetics can make (Chun, 2019).

Our goal is to 1) develop a critical language to discuss Black cinema (its techniques, its aims, and its political contexts) and 2) articulate research questions, methods, and arguments that consider what is happening inside and outside the frame in these films.