current undergraduate courses... 

Title: Chicano Cinema

Course:  CHST 3302

Semester: Summer II, 2008

Lectures/Screenings: Mondays-Thursday 6:00-8:30 UGLC 346

Office Hours: Mondays (By Appointment Only)

Objectives: This course provides a historical and theoretical framework for understanding Chicano cinema within an overarching context of American motion pictures produced during the 20^th century from a multidisciplinary perspective. Students are required to analyze messages contained within each text and investigate patterns in Latino representation that have emerged across decades of portrayals in American films (i.e., 1950-1999 and beyond). Additionally, the course promotes critical analyses of film through dialogue and brief writing assignments.

Topics: Stereotypical representation, processes of racialization, counter- hegemonic resistance via self-representation, cultural hybridity, as well as shifting representations of the border, El Paso, and new representations of America.

      JULY

• 8            Introduction: The Bronze Screen; Quiz
• 9            Origins of Representation: Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• 14          Traditional & Contemporary Chicana/o Stereotypes: Desperado
• 15          Traditional/Contemporary Chicana/o Stereotypes: Up in Smoke; Quiz
• 16          Texans & Mexicans: Giant
• 17          Latino Gangsters/Narcos: No Country for Old Men
• 21          Labor & Ownership: Salt of the Earth; Paper 1 Due
• 22          Cultural Assimilation/A Precursor to Chicano Resistance: Zoot Suit
• 23          Constructs of Family in Chicano Cinema: Mi Familia
• 24          Oscar Zeta Acosta: Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
• 28          Mainstreaming Chicano Cinema: From El Mariachi to Spy Kids; Paper Due
• 29          The Fear of the Immigrant: El Norte
• 30          Portrayals of El Paso: Mainstream Representation vs Local Chicano Identity 

      AUGUST

• 7            Final Essay Examination  

 

---

Title: Introduction to the Art of the Motion Picture

Lectures/Screenings: Mondays 1:30-4:20

Office Hours: Mondays (By Appointment Only)

Objectives: This course provides a historical and theoretical framework for understanding American motion pictures produced during the 20th century from a multidisciplinary perspective. Additionally, the course promotes critical analyses of film through dialogue and brief writing assignments.

Topics: Primary topics include: film noir, the western, horror, melodrama, American combat films, racial dynamics in film, self-representation, postmodernism, as well as shifting representations of the border, El Paso, and new representations of America.

SUMMER 2008:

      JUNE

• 10        Quiz 1, Genre; Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill
• 11        Vocabulary Terms; Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill 2
• 12        Tarantino: True Romance, Natural Born Killers, Jackie Brown, Death Proof
• 13        Tarantino Review (continued)
• 16        Quiz 2, Short Film Analysis; Introduction to the Western
• 17        Western: High Noon (Fred Zimmerman, 1952)
• 18        Sin City and the importance of Robert Rodriguez
• 19        Film Noir: Multiple films
• 20        Race in American Film; Introduction to Racialized Stereotypes
• 23        Lilies in the Field (Ralph Nelson, 1963)
• 24        Gangster Films & The American Anti-Hero: Multiple films
• 25        Classic American Film Makers: A Review
• 26        Classic American Film Makers; The American Combat Film
• 27        Horror, Science Fiction, & Graphic Novels: Multiple films
• 30        Student Film Makers: Multiple films (FILM ANALYSIS DUE)   

      JULY

• 1          Critique of U.S. Social Dynamics through Film
• 2          Postmodern Films
• 3          Final Examination

        SPRING 2008:

• Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
• High Noon (Fred Zimmerman, 1952)
• Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
• North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
• The Reckless Moment (Max Ophuls, 1949)
• The Defiant Ones (Stanley Kramer, 1958)
• Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986)
• Prelude to War (Julius Epstein, 1943)
• Why We Fight (Eugene Jarecki, 2005)
• Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
• Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
• Boys in the Hood (John Singleton, 1991)
• Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)

  FALL 2007:

• Rebel without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)
• High Noon (Fred Zimmerman, 1952)
• Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Houston, 1948)
• Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
• Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)
• In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1968)
• Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
• The Kid Stays in the Picture (Nanette Burstein & Brett Morgen, 2002)
  
• Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
  
• The Shining (Stanley Kubrik, 1980)
• Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
• The Getaway (Sam Peckinpah, 1972)
• Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
• Twelve Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995)
• Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
  

 

---

Other Undergraduate Courses

• “The American Combat Film: World War I-Gulf War II”
• “Applied Ethnographic & Survey Research Methods”
• “Digital Divide Issues & Research in El Paso”
• "The Impact of Graphic Novels on American Film & Film Studies"
  
• “Race, Class, & Media: An Introduction”
•  “The Representation of American Icons & Subpopulations: 1956-1999”                     
• “Understanding Social Change in America: Racialization, Classification, & Counter-hegemonic Resistance”
• “U.S. Latinos in Film, Television, News, & Advertising”
• “U.S. Latinos in Hollywood: 1940-2007”
  

---

Graduate Courses

• “Latino Political Communication during State & National Elections”
• “Leadership Studies for Predominantly Latino Communities”
• “Multiform Capital, Collective Agency, & the Field of Power: An Overview of Bourdieu & Gramsci”
• “Polyracial Identity & Protocultural Formations in American Youth Populations”

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO

Department of Communication

 

Cotton Memorial, 202

915.227.2551

jvillescas@utep.edu