AAST 257 - African American History Through Film

FC ARHU CD

4 credits
Over the Twentieth Century a canon of African American film has developed and been employed to educate the community on its history. Recent controversies over the movies Detroit, Harriet, and Judas and the Black Messiah have raised questions about the genre and who is permitted to use the medium to define Black History. In this course we will examine how the genre of African American film has represented, or misrepresented, Black history and culture. To evaluate these films’ accuracy, we will pair them with primary and secondary source material. The course will require students to do close readings of these written materials alongside viewing films. We will contend with the following concepts: What is/not a Black film, idealism vs. realism, accuracy vs. integrity, and who has the right to tell African American stories?

This course is appropriate for new students.