This seminar will introduce graduate students to key concepts in queer studies and film theory through an archive of Italian arthouse cinema. The recent international success of films such as Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017), Youth (Paolo Sorrentino, 2015), and The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013) has pushed some film critics to talk about a rebirth of contemporary Italian cinema, at the same time triggering a series of debates long been central to gender and sexuality studies including the representation of gay sex on screen, the male gaze, and the universality/particularity of queer desire. Engaging some of these debates, this course has a twofold aim 1) to provide students with an understanding of crucial texts and topics in film theory and queer theory, 2) offer a genealogical reconstruction of the history of Italian arthouse cinema, focusing on those films that contribute to our knowledge of the mechanics of sex and desire. In our discussions we will combine formal analysis of films with theoretical readings from authors at the intersection of queer studies, feminist studies and psychoanalysis (Freud, Butler, Dyer, Mulvey, Doane, Edelman, Silverman, among others). Films may include Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy (1954); Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Eclipse (1962); Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Theorem (1968); Lina Wertmüller’s Love & Anarchy (1973); Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter (1974) and Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977).