BA Drama

This course introduces students to the study of Black representation in screen culture. The course will focus on selected films and television programmes, including from the US and UK. Students will be encouraged to consider key areas of debate, including race, culture and politics, intersectionality, multiculturalism and post-coloniality. A key concern running through the course will be self-representation. ‘Blackness’ as defined by the course is an inclusive term to refer to individuals and communities of African and Caribbean heritage. 

• To consider the historical and contemporary representations of people of African ancestry on screen, predominantly in the US and the UK
• To consider the social, cultural and political contexts of Black representation and self-representation in screen media

The lectures for this course unit will be delivered online.

• Contextualise the history of Black representation primarily in US and British screen media
• Analyse the aesthetics of Black representation
• Demonstrate a developed understanding of how Black representation can be considered as part of the struggles for Black settlement and advancement in the Western worldancement in the Western world

• Demonstrate independent thinking in analysis
• Demonstrate cultural, historical and theoretical understanding of screen texts and related sources (posters, trailers, reviews etc)
• Demonstrate an enhanced ability to undertake close screen textual analysis
• Extrapolate socio-cultural concepts from close analysis and reading

• Work effectively in group work contexts
• Present ideas and intellectual arguments in class discussions
• Demonstrate critical writing skills
• Research academic and non-academic materials, and evaluate the effectiveness of these materials as supporting evidence for assessments
• Produce a group poster 

• Demonstrate an ability to communicate effectively with others about intellectually demanding concepts, topics, materials

• Demonstrate an ability to draw with accuracy, focus, detail and precision on complex materials in independent and group work

• Demonstrate an ability to effectively present – through discussion and in writing – complex topics, drawing convincingly on oral, written and visual media as appropriate to the topic

Group poster   30%

Assessed essay  70%

• Bogle, Donald. (1988). Blacks in American Film: Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies and Bucks. New York: Garland
• Diawara, Manthia. (1993). Black American Cinema. New York: Routledge
• Dyer, Richard. (1997). White. London: Routledge
• Everett, Anna. (2001). Returning the Gaze: a Genealogy of Black Film Criticism, Durham, NC: Duke
• Fanon, Frantz. (1986).  Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. London: Pluto
• Guerrero, Ed. (1993). Framing Blackness: African American Image in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press
• Hall, Stuart. Ed. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage: OUP
• Hooks, Bell. (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation. London: South End
• Ross, Karen (1996) Black and White Media: Black Images in Popular Film and Television. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam (1994) Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London: Routledge
• Young, Lola (1996) Fear of the Dark: `Race', Gender and Sexuality in the Cinema. London: Routledge

Plus one film screening per week