Anthropology and Cinema

Anthropology and the Cinema explores the relationship between anthropological theories and mainstream American movies. This semester will focus on the long history of alien invasion movies that have provided American culture with a way to talk about self and Other. The course will look at these movies as if they were ethnographic accounts of these encounters and will consider consider issues of metaphor, categorization, ritual, identity, The Other, and authenticity. The class will create a group video that explores these issues of ethnographic documentation and alien entities.