Worlding Asian Cinemas: Aesthetic and Globalization

Though convenient and encompassing, the term “world cinema” evokes a sense of cynicism. Maybe because the term itself asserts a sort of canonization and privileges the idea of the universal—the insurmountable authority of the world, which becomes to some degree a principal category. It is thus ethically important to ask whether or not this canonization actually bypasses or even relinquishes parts that make world cinema become worldly as it is. This course is interested in this theoretical entanglement especially in relation to a geographically and historically diverse region like Asia. It also seeks to investigate the process through which the local becomes the world—the worlding process of Asian cinemas. What are some of the aesthetic, cultural, economic and political expectations implicated in the the process of worlding Asian cinemas? We will start our course by examining a theoretical debate on world cinema and the place of Asia in cinematic traditions. Then, we will analyze some internationally acclaimed Asian films with concepts such as auteur, postcolonial cinema, national/transnational film market. These concepts will allow us to investigate some aesthetic criteria and political discourses with which the films themselves engage. In the second half of the course, we will shift our attention toward some popular Asian films and consider the complex relationship between local stories/markets and the global ones.