About the Course

Join Dr. Artel Great, the SFSU George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair in African American Cinema Studies for this four-session seminar exploring the hidden histories of Black cinema and social change. Over the course of our seminar sessions, we will analyze a range of feature films, both documentary and narrative, that highlight the intellectual history, aesthetic practices, and cultural politics of Black cinema and examine how these films have managed to forecast, initiate, and visualize social change in a wide variety of contexts from Black silent era films to Blaxploitation, the L.A. Rebellion and beyond.

Films that will be discussed in each class

Week 1- I Am Not Your Negro [1.12.22]

Week 2- The Spook Who Sat by the Door [1.19.22]

Week 3- Hollywood Shuffle [1.26.22]

Week 4- Marvel’s Black Panther [2.2.22]

Course Objectives

• To provide participants with a critical overview and foundational knowledge of Black cinema as a site for both social protest and cultural affirmation.

• To help participants better understand the vital and longstanding contributions of Black artists and filmmakers to the evolution of American cinema.

• To inspire deeper self-directed learning regarding the role Black cinema might play in the decolonization of film history and in sharpening our understandings of the myriad ways in which race functions as a quotidian component of modern life.