The following syllabus may be modified and the number of screenings adjusted.
East Asia Cinemas: From National to Transnational
Instructor: Michelle Cho
Contact: mhcho@uci.edu
Yonsei International Summer School
This six-week Yonsei International Summer School seminar has two objectives. On
the one hand, it looks at national film critical traditions in the context of post-WW II
East Asia. On the other, it suggests the possibility of reworking or rejecting national
traditions in the context of a “transnational Asian cinema.” Differing modes of film
criticism—feminist, postcolonial, Marxist, queer, cultural studies—are examined in
light of films selected from Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Japanese, and
Korean cinemas. In studying both the implications of the national model for film studies
and the formative role that Asian cinemas themselves played in its construction, our
work extends to a consideration of the Cold War legacy of area studies as well as film
criticism’s early imaginations of a universal, visual language. But in looking at
international and then transnational production, we consider how recent economic and
cultural conditions have refigured the national model. Complicit and competing
concepts of the nation are necessarily teased out of both film and text.
Course Requirements:

Regular attendance at all classes and screenings. Per the Yonsei Summer School
Guidelines, absences in excess of 5 (30% of the total number of class meetings)
is grounds for failure in the course, regardless of performance on exams and
assignments. 2 tardies (more than 5 minutes late) will count as 1 absence. No
exceptions to this policy can be made.

Midterm Paper (20%) – 4-5 pages, double-spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman, 1"
margins.

Final Exam (30%) – In-class essay exam

In-Class and Online Participation (30%) – In-class participation (15%) will be
evaluated on the basis of on-time attendance, involvement in class discussion,
and alertness. Online Participation (15%) will involve active engagement with
discussions on our course blog. Each of you will sign up for a week in which
you will take responsibility for posting background/contextual information on
one of the films, directors, or genres we are discussing. This information should
be posted by the Sunday evening before the start of the week. In addition, each
of you will also be required to post your responses to the films we screen and
comment upon your classmates’ postings on a regular basis (at least 3 postings
of any length per week).

Film Notes (20%) – you are required to take notes on each film screened. These
notes should then be typed up and organized according to the guidelines
provided. The purpose of the film notes is to ensure focused, attentive viewing,
to prepare you to analyze the films in detail in your midterm and final essays.
Film notes will be collected twice during the term: at the end of the 3rd week
(Thursday, 7/16); and on the last day of the course (Wednesday, 8/5).

Individual Screenings of Films – while most of the films we watch in the course
will be screened in-class, I will ask you to watch 1 or 2 films outside of class, at
the Multimedia Resource Center at the Samsung Library on campus (attached to
the Central Library).
All Yonsei Summer School students can view any
audio/visual materials in the library holdings at the viewing stations in the
Multimedia Resource Center.
Course Texts/Materials
Film screenings, primarily in-class, will constitute the primary sources of our analysis.
A course reader containing all course readings is required and will be available for
purchase on the first day of class. You will also have the opportunity to analyze films
screened at the Pucheon Fantastic Film Festival or the Korean Film Archive for extra
credit, as a component of your online participation.
Week One:
National Aesthetics and the Aesthetics of Nationalism
Reading:

Postcolonial Studies: Key Concepts. Selections.

Alan Williams, "Introduction" (1-22); Andrew Higson, “The Concept of
National Cinema” (52-67); Stephen Crofts, “Reconceptualizing National
Cinema(s)” (25-51) in Alan Williams, ed. Film and Nationalism. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Chungmoo Choi, "The Politics of Gender, Aestheticism, and Cultural
Nationalism in Sopyonje and The Genealogy"; Cho Hae Joang, "Sopyonje: Its
Cultural and Historical Meaning"; Julian Stringer, "Sopyonje and the Inner
Domain of National Culture"; in David E. James and Kyung Hyun Kim, eds., Im
Kwon-Taek: The Making of a Korean National Cinema. Wayne State University
Press, 2002. 107-181.
Screening:
Sopyonje, 1993, IM Kwon-Taek, 112 mins.
Week Two:
National Cinema, Nostalgia, and Collectivity
Reading:

Rey Chow, "Silent is the Ancient Plain," from Primitive Passions: Visuality,
Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema." New York:
Columbia University Press, 1995. 79-107.

Han Ju Kwak. "Discourse on Modernization in 1990s Korean Cinema," in Jenny
Kwak Wah Lau, ed. Multiple Modernities: Cinemas and Popular Media in
Transcultural East Asia. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003. 90-113.

Chris Berry, “If China Can Say No, Can China Make Movies? Or, Do Movies
Make China? Rethinking National Cinema and National Agency” boundary 2
25:3 (1998) 128-150.
Screening:
Red Sorghum, 1987, ZHANG Yimou, 90 mins.
Peppermint Candy, 2000, LEE Chang-dong, 127 mins.
Week Three:
Area Studies and the Making and Unmaking of Official Culture
Reading:

Eric Cazdyn, "Representation, Reality Culture, and Global Capitalism in Japan"
South Atlantic Quarterly 99:4 (2000) 903-927.

H.D. Harootunian, “Postcoloniality’s Unconscious/Area Studies’ Desire,”
Postcolonial Studies 2: 2 (1999) 127-147.

Tessa Morris-Suzuki “Anti-Area Studies,” Communal Plural 8: 1 (April 2000)
9-23.
Screening:
If You Were Me, 2003, selections
Our School, 2007, KIM Myung-jun, 131 mins.
Midterm Paper and 1st Installment of Film Notes Due: 7/16
Week Four:
Translation, Transmission, Transnation
Reading:

Rey Chow, "Film as Ethnography," in Primitive Passions, 176-243.

Ackbar Abbas. "Cosmopolitan De-scriptions: Shanghai and Hong Kong," in
Homo Bhabha et al., eds. Cosmopolitanism. Durham NC: Duke University Press,
2002. 209-228.

Miriam Hansen. "Fallen Women, Rising Stars, New Horizons: Shanghai Silent
Film as Vernacular Modernism." Film Quarterly 54:1 (Autumn, 2000) 10-22.
Screening:
Chungking Express, 1994, WONG Kar Wai, 98 mins.
3-Iron, 2004, KIM Ki-duk, 90 mins
Week Five:
Sexuality, Allegory, Nation
Reading:

Helen Hok-sze Leung, “Queerscapes in Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema” in
Esther Yau and Kyung Hyun Kim, eds., Positions: East Asian Cultures Critique
Asia/Pacific Cinemas: A Spectral Surface, 423-447.

Rey Chow, “Nostalgia of the New Wave: Structure in Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy
Together,” Camera Obscura 42 September 1999.
Screening:
Happy Together, 1997, WONG Kar Wai, 97 mins
The Hole, 1998, TSAI Ming-Liang, 95 mins
Week Six:
Reading:
Global Aesthetics: Transnational Styles?

Steve Fore, "Jackie Chan and the Cultural Dynamics of Global Entertainment."
In Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, ed. Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity,
Nationhood, Gender. Honolulu: University of Hawai'I Press, 1997. 221-262.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Multinational Pest Control: Does American Cinema Still
Exist?” in Williams, Film and Nationalism, 217-229.
Screening:
Once Upon a Time in High School. 2004, HA Yu, 116 mins.
**The Killer, [첩혈쌍] 1989, John WOO, 104 mins.
Multimedia Resource Center Call number: DVD 791.4372 004 가
**Watch on your own at the Multimedia Resource Center, Samsung Library
Final Exam and 2nd Installment of Film Notes Due: 8/5