Semester:
Fall
Offered:
2023
Professor: Jennifer Biddle
W - 12:00pm to 2:45pm
The course tracks a contemporary history of visuality ‘by and about Aboriginal people and things’ citing the subtitle of the classic 1993 text by Indigenous Australian anthropologist and cultural activist Marcia Langton (Yiman/Bidjara) as a starting point and key reference. Set within an emergent trajectory of World cinema and First Nations media production, we examine critical moments and transformations in the social, political and historical contexts of four decades of Australian screen-based culture and practice, from remote communities to silver screens to mobile applications and platforms. The course will feature the vital work of video, satellite television, digital and the phone-made, AI, VR, immersive new media, as well as documentary, narrative and experimental film, from shorts to serials to features. Although the focus is on Australia, the course will place emphasis on transnational and global initiatives, comparisons and networks of Indigenous and First Nations cultural production and media activism across the Americas, the Artic, New Zealand/Aotearoa. Students will be introduced to a broad and interdisciplinary scholarship, reading with and against the canon, from ethnography, film, visual and media studies, to phenomenological, feminist, decolonial and critical Indigenous studies in order to develop conceptual frameworks and media literacies through applied analysis. Weekly screenings will be built into class timetable and structure.
In addition to weekly (day) class meetings, the course will feature a series of three to four (TBD) evening-based global time-zone guest screenings and lectures from Australian First Nations artists, curators and academics across a range of course thematic.
W - 12:00pm to 2:45pm
The course tracks a contemporary history of visuality ‘by and about Aboriginal people and things’ citing the subtitle of the classic 1993 text by Indigenous Australian anthropologist and cultural activist Marcia Langton (Yiman/Bidjara) as a starting point and key reference. Set within an emergent trajectory of World cinema and First Nations media production, we examine critical moments and transformations in the social, political and historical contexts of four decades of Australian screen-based culture and practice, from remote communities to silver screens to mobile applications and platforms. The course will feature the vital work of video, satellite television, digital and the phone-made, AI, VR, immersive new media, as well as documentary, narrative and experimental film, from shorts to serials to features. Although the focus is on Australia, the course will place emphasis on transnational and global initiatives, comparisons and networks of Indigenous and First Nations cultural production and media activism across the Americas, the Artic, New Zealand/Aotearoa. Students will be introduced to a broad and interdisciplinary scholarship, reading with and against the canon, from ethnography, film, visual and media studies, to phenomenological, feminist, decolonial and critical Indigenous studies in order to develop conceptual frameworks and media literacies through applied analysis. Weekly screenings will be built into class timetable and structure.
In addition to weekly (day) class meetings, the course will feature a series of three to four (TBD) evening-based global time-zone guest screenings and lectures from Australian First Nations artists, curators and academics across a range of course thematic.