FREN 6850

Women, War and Terror in Francophone Cinema

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

In this course, we will consider a range of films that depict the role of women in armed conflict and revolution in North Africa.  We will begin by considering the Algerian War of Independence, and the key role played by female insurgents, depicted in Pontecorvo's La Bataille d'Alger, Resnais's Muriel, and Djebar's La Nouba des Femmes du Mont Chenova.  We will consider several contemporary Algerian films that depict the civil war of the 1990s, many from the perspective of female protagonists, before turning to the experimental and documentary cinema of Tunisia and Egypt, made in the wake of the 2011 'Arab Spring'.  The course will combine close readings of these films with historical and theoretical considerations around the ethics of the moving image, gendered spectatorship, and the particular position of women as both agents and victims of violence.

When Offered Spring.

Comments Conducted in English.

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