ENG 4130: Black Body Praxis on Film
FALL 2012
Class: Tuesday period 7 and Thursday periods 7-8
Screening: Monday periods E1-E3
Room: Turlington 2322
Prof. Amy Abugo Ongiri (Department of English)
Email: aongiri@ufl.edu
Office: Turlington 4356
Office Hours: Tuesday 2-3:30, Thursday 2-3, Wednesday 3-4 and by appt.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This class will examine the current cultural and theoretical discourse relating to the
production and consumption of the Black body on film. We will consider the politics of
representation in relationship to questions of masculinity, violence, the Black female
body as spectacle, the body in relationship to constructions of urbanity, and the Black
body in a transnational visual economy. Films examined might include D. W. Griffiths’
Birth of a Nation, Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, Julie Dash’s Illusions and Daughters
of the Dust, Fatima El Tayeb and Angelina Maccarone’s Everything Will Be Fine, Lee
Daniels’ Precious, Ngozi Onwurah’s The Body Beautiful and Coffee Colored Children,
Branwen Okpako’s Dirt Eater, Raoul Peck’s Profit and Nothing But and Lumumba and
Daniel Peddles’ Aggressives. The course will address recent theoretical positions
articulated in relationship to African American bodies in Film and Cultural Studies by
scholars such as Jacqueline Bobo, Saidiya Hartman, Phillip Brian Harper, Hamid
Naficy, Elizabeth Alexander, Yvonne D. Sims, Keith M. Harris, Wahneema Lubiano,
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw and Paul Gilroy.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Books: All three of the following required books are available at the University bookstore in
Reitz Union
Iton, Richard. In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil
Rights Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Guerrero, Ed. Framing Blackness: The African American Image on Film. (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1993).
Cohen, Cathy. The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
Coursepack: Available at Xerographics (located at the corner of 10th Ave and 13th St)
ASSIGNMENTS AND REQUIREMENTS
1. A midterm essay due in class on Thursday, October 11. Four questions will be
provided based on themes explored in class and through assigned readings and viewings.
You will choose one to answer in a 7 to 10 page essay. (40% of course grade)
2. An annotated bibliography on a topic of your choosing that relates to the themes of the
class final essay due in class on Thursday, November 8. (10% of course grade)
3. A final essay to be delivered in person to my office on Tuesday December 11. You
will develop this essay based on a topic of your choosing that relates to the themes of the
class and has developed through your annotated bibliography ( 40% of course grade)
4. Quizzes to be given in class. These will be unannounced and will test for your general
comprehension of class themes and concepts. (5% of course grade).
5. Attendance and participation in discussion sections. Students are expected to actively
engage in class discussions throughout the semester. (5% of course grade)
ATTENDANCE
Attendance will be taken during each class and film screening. After the first late arrival, the
instructor reserves the right to mark you absent for the day. The instructors will not provide
notes, or discuss material that has already been covered in class. You are allowed three
unexcused absences; after that each unexcused absence will result in a one-step grade reduction
(e.g. from a B+ to B, or a B to a B-).
ACADEMIC HONESTY
Students must conform to UF’s academic honesty policy regarding plagiarism and other forms of
cheating. This means that on all work submitted for credit by students at the University of
Florida, the following pledge is either required or implied: “On my honor, I have neither given
nor received unauthorized aid in doing this assignment.”
The university specifically prohibits cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation, bribery, conspiracy,
and fabrication. For more information about the definition of these terms and other aspects of the
Honesty Guidelines, see http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/academic.php.
All students found to have cheated, plagiarized, or otherwise violated the Honor Code in any
assignment for this course will be prosecuted to the full extent of the university honor policy,
including judicial action and the sanctions listed in paragraph XI of the Student Conduct Code.
For serious violations, you will fail this course.
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Please do not hesitate to ask for accommodation for a documented disability. Students requesting
classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office
(http://www.dso.ufl.edu/drp/). The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the
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student, who must then provide this documentation to the Instructor when requesting
accommodation. Please ask the instructor if you would like any assistance in this process.
OTHER POLICIES, RULES, AND RESOURCES
1. Handing in Assignments: All assignments due in class are due no later than the first
fifteen minutes of class.
2. Late or Make-Up Assignments: You may receive an extension on an assignment only in
extraordinary circumstances and only if the request for the extension is (a) prompt, (b)
timely, and (c) accompanied by all necessary written documentation.

In the case of an absence due to participation in an official university activity,
observance of a religious holiday, performance of a military duty, or other formal
services that conflict with the scheduled assignment (e.g., jury duty), the student is
required to notify the instructor of the conflict before the assignment is due, and if
possible at the start of the semester.

No late assignments will be accepted without explicate permission.

For further information on University of Florida’s attendance policy, consult
https://catalog.ufl.edu/ugrad/current/regulations/info/attendance.aspx
3. Completion of All Assignments: You must complete all written and oral assignments and
fulfill the requirement for class participation in order to pass the course.
4. Common Courtesy: Cell phones and other electronic devices must be turned off during
class. Students who receive or make calls or text messages during class will be asked to
leave and marked absent for the day. The instructors may ask students engaging in
disruptive behavior, including but not limited to whispering or snoring, to leave the class.
If that occurs, the student will be marked absent for the day.
5.
Computer Use in Class: You may take notes on a laptop computer ONLY WITH PRIOR
PERMISSION OF THE INSTRUCTOR. Such permission is usually granted only in
cases of documented disabilities.
6. Counseling Resources: Resources available on-campus for students include the
following:
a. University Counseling Center, 301 Peabody Hall, 392-1575, personal and career
counseling;
b. Student Mental Health, Student Health Care Center, 392-1171, personal counseling;
c. Sexual Assault Recovery Services (SARS), Student Health Care Center, 392-1161,
sexual counseling;
d. Career Resource Center, Reitz Union, 392-1601, career development assistance and
counseling.
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WEEKLY SCHEDULE
WEEK ONE: INTRODUCTION
(Aug 22-24)
Readings: Begin readings for Week Two
Thursday Lecture (8/23): Introducing Black Body Praxis on Film
WEEK TWO: THEORIZING BLACK FILM
(Aug 27-31)
Film: Birth of a Nation (W.D. Griffith, 1915)
Tuesday Lecture (8/28): Theorizing Black Film
Reading:
1. Yearwood, Gladstone. “Theorizing Black Film,” Black Film as a Signifying Practice:
Cinema, Narration and the African American Aesthetic Tradition. (Chicago: African World
Press, 2000): 69-122. (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (8/30): Framing Blackness: Hollywood creates Blackness
Reading:
1. Guerrero, Ed. "Introduction" and “From Birth to Blaxploitation: Hollywood’s Inscription
of Slavery,” Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1993): 1-40.
2. Hartman, Saidiya V. “Innocent Amusements: The Stage of Sufferance” Scenes of
Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth Century America (New York:
Oxford Press, 1997): 17-48. (coursepack)
WEEKS THREE AND FOUR: BLACK IN THE MAINSTREAM
(Sept 3-14)
Film: Nothing But a Man (Michael Roemer, 1964)
Tuesday Lecture (9/4): Figuring Difference: Black Images in Classic Hollywood
Reading:
1. Guerrero, Ed. "Slaves, Monsters, and Others: Racial Fragmentation, Metaphor, and
Allegory on the Commercial Screen," Framing Blackness: The African American Image in
Film (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993): 41-68.
3.Nickel, John. “Disabling African American Men: Liberalism and Race Message Films,” Cinema
Journal 44: 1 (Autumn, 2004): 25-48. (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (9/6): Blackness and the Cinematic
Reading:
1. Butte, George. “Suture and the Narration of Subjectivity in Film,” Poetics Today 29:2
(Summer 2008): 227-308. (coursepack)
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Film: Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920)
Tuesday Lecture (9/11): The Problem of Assimilation
Reading:
1.Fanon, Frantz. “The Lived Experience of the Black Man,” Black Skin, White Masks. (New
York: Grove Press, 1952): 89-119. (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (9/13): Seekers and Salvation: Rescripting Otherness
1. Rhines, Jesse Algeron. “The Silent Era,” Black Film/White Money. (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 2000): 14-28. (coursepack)
WEEK FIVE: THE RISE AND FALL OF BLAXPLOITATION
(Sept 17-21)
Film: Willie Dynamite (Gilbert Moses, 1974)
Tuesday Lecture (9/18): The Meanings of Blaxploitation
Gateway Readings:
1. Guerrero, Ed. “The Rise and Fall of Blaxploitation,” Framing Blackness: The African
American Image in Film (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993): 69-111.
Thursday Lecture (9/20): Is a Black Hero Possible in Hollywood?: Continuity and Change in
Hollywood Images of Black Men
Readings:
1. Rhines, Jesse Algeron. “The Negro Cycle through Blaxploitation: 1945-1974,” Black
Film/White Money. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000): 36-50.
(coursepack)
WEEK SIX: THE BLACK MALE BODY AS TARGET
(Sept 24-28)
Film: Boyz in the Hood (John Singleton, 1991)
Tuesday Lecture (9/25): The Rise of the Ghetto Gangster on Screen
Readings:
1.Guerrero, Ed. “Black Film in the 1990s: The New Black Movie Boom and Its
Portents,” Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1993): 157-208.
2. Sexton, Jared. “The Ruse of Engagement: Black Masculinity and the Cinema of
Policing,” American Quarterly 61:1 (March 2009): 39-63 (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (9/27): The Black Body, Black Politics, Visual Culture and Public Policy
Readings:
1.Iton, Richard. “Known Rivers/New Forms” and “Remembering the Family,” In Search
of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 3-29, 30-80.
WEEK SEVEN: OPPOSITIONAL SPECTATORSHIP AND VIEWING PLEASURE
(Oct 1-5)
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Film: Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977)
Tuesday Lecture (10/2): The Black Body and the Question of Resistance
Readings:
1. Yearwood, Gladstone. “The Emergence of the Black Independent Film Movement,” Black
Film as a Signifying Practice: Cinema, Narration and the African American Aesthetic
Tradition. (Chicago: African World Press, 2000): 21-68. (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (10/4): IN CLASS VIEWING OF BLACK PANTHER (Third World
Newsreel, 1968)
1. hooks, bell. “The Oppositional Gaze,” Black Looks: Race and Representation. (Boston:
South End Press, 1992): 115-132. (coursepack).
WEEK EIGHT: THE QUESTION OF RESISTANT SPECTATORSHIP
Film: Bush Mama (Haile Gerima, 1976)
Tuesday Lecture (10/9): Resistance, the Gaze, and the Black Female Body
Readings:
1. Gilman, Sander. “Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female
Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature,” Critical Inquiry, Vol.
12:1, " ‘Race,’ Writing, and Difference,” (Autumn, 1985): 204-242. (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (10/11): MID-TERM ESSAY DUE IN CLASS
1. Murashige, Mike. “Haile Gerima and the Political Economy of Cinematic Resistance,”
Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press,): 183-203.
MID-TERM ESSAY DUE IN CLASS
WEEK NINE: THE BLACK FEMALE BODY ON DISPLAY
(Oct 15-19)
Film: Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009)
Tuesday Lecture (10/16): The Black Body as Social Problem in the Age of AIDS
Readings:
1. Cohen, Cathy. “The Boundaries of Black Politics” and “Marginalization: Power, Identity,
and Membership,” The Boundaries of Blackness. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1999): 1-33, 34-77.
Wednesday Lecture (10/18): The Black Female Body on Display
Readings:
1. Stephens, Isabel. “The Value of ‘Precious’” Sight and Sound 20:2 (Fall 2010): 11.
(coursepack)
2. Holmes, Rachel. “Phoenomenon,” “Venus Rising,” “Freewoman or Slave,” “CacheSexe” The Hottentot Venus. (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2007): 1-6, 53-75, 76-109, 110132. (coursepack)
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WEEK TEN: THE TECHNOLOGY OF BLACK EMBODIMENT
(Oct 22-26)
Film: Blade (Stephen Norrington, 1998)
Tuesday Lecture (10/23): GUEST LECTURE ACTION FILMMAKER/ACTOR
DESMOND JACKSON
Readings:
1. Chan, Kenneth. “The Construction of Black Male Identity in Black Action Films of the
Nineties,” Cinema Journal 37:2 (Winter 1998): 34-48. (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (10/25): The Ghetto Reloaded: Black Action Film and Post-Human PostRacialism
Readings:
1. Hall, Stuart. “What is ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture,” Representing Blackness: Issues
in Film and Video (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,): 123-133. (coursepack)
WEEKS ELEVEN AND TWELVE: REIMAGINING GENDER ON SCREEN
(Oct 29-Nov 8)
Film: Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991)
Tuesday Lecture (10/30): “I Do Exist:” Revolution, Vision, and New Black Images
Readings:
1. Iton, Richard. “Variations on Solidarity Blues” and “Let Them Only See Us,” In Search
of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 101-130, 131-194.
2. Martin, Michael T. " ‘I Do Exist’ From "Black Insurgent" to Negotiating the Hollywood
Divide--A Conversation with Julie Dash,” Cinema Journal 49:2 (Winter 2010): 1-16.
(coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (11/1): The Question of Dissent in a Civil Society
`
Reading:
1. Gourdine, Angeletta K. M. “Fashioning the Body [as] Politic in Julie Dash's Daughters of
the Dust” African American Review 38:3 (Fall 2004): 499-511. (coursepack)
Film: Pariah (Dee Rees, 2011)
Tuesday Lecture (11/6): Invisible to Visual Culture
IN CLASS VIEWING OF ILLUSIONS (Julie Dash, 1983)
Reading:
1. Cohen, Cathy J. “Enter AIDS: Context and Confrontation” The Boundaries of Blackness.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999): 78-118.
Thursday Lecture (11/8): The Politics of Exclusion
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1. Cohen, Cathy J “All the Black People Fit to Print” The Boundaries of Blackness. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1999): 149-185.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE IN CLASS
WEEK THIRTEEN: TRANSNATIONAL BLACK BODIES
(Nov 12-16)
Film: Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus, 1959)
Tuesday Lecture (11/13): “The Camera is a Gun:” Blackness in the Brazilian Context
Readings:
1. Bradshaw, Peter. “Why Obama is wrong about Black Orpheus,” Film Blog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/feb/02/barack-obama-black-orpheus
2. Ortolano, Glauco and Julie A. Porter. “Brazilian Cinema: Film in the Land of Black
Orpheus,” World Literature Today 77: 3/4 (Oct. - Dec., 2003): 19-23. (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (11/15):
Reading:
1. Iton, Richard. “Round Trips on the Black Star Line,” In Search of the Black Fantastic:
Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2008): 195-294.
WEEKS FOURTEEN AND FIFTEEN: EMBODIMENT AND THE CINEMA OF
HUNGER
(Nov 19, 26-30)
Film: City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)
Tuesday Lecture (11/20): Exporting Violence: Hood Films in the International Context
Reading:
1. Chan, Felicia and Valentina Vitali. “Revisiting the ‘realism’ of the cosmetics of hunger:
Cidade de Deus and Ônibus 174” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 8:1(Winter
2010): 15-30. (coursepack)
Thanksgiving Break: November 21-23
Tuesday Lecture (11/27): Violence, Display and the Black Body
Reading:
1. Melo, João Marcelo. “Aesthetics and Ethics in City of God: Content Fails, Form Talks,”
Third Text 18:5 (2004): 475–481 (coursepack)
Thursday Lecture (11/29): The Cinema of Hunger and the Black Body
Reading:
1. Melo, João Marcelo. “Aesthetics and Ethics in City of God: Content Fails, Form
Talks,” Third Text 18:5 (2004): 475–481 (coursepack)
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WEEK SIXTEEN: MEMORY, VIOLENCE, AND THE BLACK BODY IN VISUAL
CULTURE
(Dec 3-5)
FILM: Tsotsi (Gavin Hood, 2005)
Tuesday Lecture (1/4): Drawing Conclusions and the Future of Black Images in Cinema
Culture
FINAL ESSAY DUE IN PERSON AT MY OFFICE TUESDAY DECEMBER 11
NO LATER THEN 5pm
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