This course is an introduction to Chinese cinema in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas, with emphasis on the way it represents or negotiates notions of China and Chineseness, as well as national and cultural identity. We will examine Chinese cinematic traditions in light of significant topics such as: the foundation of Chinese cinema and the rise of nationalism; film’s relationship to literary and popular cultural discourses; the pursuit of modernization; aesthetic responses to political and historical upheavals and transformations; the aesthetics of revolution, diaspora and transnationalism; visualized sexualities, violence, and youth subculture; collective desires to imagine and reinvent the cultural past; the politics of memory, mourning and amnesia, among others.TR 3:00-4:30