Semester 2

Film in Print / Screening Queens                                                                             

Jan Baetens & Anke Gilleir (KULeuven)

Part 1 – FILM IN PRINT (Jan Baetens; intensive seminar: 20-26 February 2019)

20th February: 4pm-8pm room “sala de vídeo”  / 21st-26th February: 10am-2pm room  1.26

Film is generally considered a hybrid medium, combining “sound and vision”. Most films, however, and cinema in general as a cultural practice, do not only exist on screen (be it in a theatre or on a personal device), but also in many different forms. One of these other forms is “film in print”, an umbrella term that gathers a wide range of forms and genres that reproduce –or rather reconstruct, if not fully invent – filmic works on paper, from novelisations to film novels, from film photonovels to ekphrastic poetry, from the making of books to all kinds of film criticism, etc. The main goal of this part of the seminar is to approach this phenomenon in a comparative way, while also taking into account the cultural and historical dimensions of a phenomenon that is as old and diverse as film itself.  We will therefore address both theoretical and practical aspects as well as focus on the comparative analysis of certain movies in various print media.

Part 2 – SCREENING QUEENS (Anke Gilleir; intensive seminar: 14-20 March 2019)

10am-2pm, room 1.26

This seminar deals with the representation of female sovereignty in literature and film.  While the entirety of Western history has insisted on the anomaly of women and power, there is an equally strong fascination with women rulers which is revealed in countless fictional, pseudo-historical or ‘purely’ biographical narratives from the eighteenth century until today (cf.  the recent ITV/WGBH biopic series “Victoria”). The aim of this seminar is to analyse how women rulers are staged in a variety of texts and films from early modernism until today. The analysis will be approached from a comparative angle in order to trace the mechanisms of erotisation that are inevitably at play in the imaginary staging of women in power. We will look at relevant fragments/case studies that deal with iconic historical figures and address the issues of body and sexuality using relevant gender/media theories. Features will range from Sternberg’s Scarlet Empress (1934) to Marvin Chomsky’s Catherine the Great (1995), the selection of primary and secondary material will be announced in time.