Course Description

ENGL 3880:  Women and Film

Instructor: Dr. Elyce Rae Helford

Prerequisites: Successful completion of ENGL 1010, 1020, and 2020 or 2030.

Credit: ENGL 3880 provides three hours credit in MTSU's English major, English minor, Film Studies minor, and Women's Studies minor.

Description: With emphasis on theoretical approaches to the study of women and film, including Images of Women, The Gaze, The Masquerade, Audience Studies, and Genre Studies (particularly The Woman's Film), this course introduces students to both representations of women in film and women as producers and consumers of film. 

Specific films vary by semester, but range from the early twentieth century to the present and from the Hollywood system to independent international cinema.  After introductory examples of mainstream film, we move to emphasis on women directors.  Films chosen for past sections include: The Women, Dance Girl Dance, Vertigo, The Stepford Wives, Stranger Inside, Real Women Have Curves, Orlando, Whale Rider, Bend It Like Beckham, Fire, Two Women.

Textbook: Feminist Film Theory: A Reader, ed. Sue Thornham.