This course examines the multiple strategies postcolonial representations employ in staging encounters between racial, gender, sexual, class, ethnic, and religious difference in a global context, but with a particular focus on South Asia. How do questions of community, nation, identity, regionalism, diasporas, and the globalization of culture in general inform postcolonial aesthetics? How are the postcolonial terms of representation altered when we consider not only how the “West” regards the “East” but also how the empire looks back? Finally, how do vernacular and hybrid cultures influence the adaptation of oral, literary and other film texts? What sorts of new reading and viewing practices do these transtextual film adaptations engender? Students can look forward to viewing, discussing, and writing about postcoloniality and film.