From Sir with Love

Am I the only one who would love to read or hear a little more often about the day jobs and non-bloggish projects being conducted week-in and -out among our little school of fish. I probably talk about it more than most, partly because my job isn't always such a far cry from what I'm up to on this site, but I still think it's funny sometimes that even among many of the frequent commenters, I know who you think is going to win Best Supporting Actor from the New York Film Critics Circle but I don't really know what you do of a workday. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Either way, even if you don't want to show me yours, I'm showing you mine, because I'm so excited to teach this newly expanded Contemporary Women Filmmakers course next quarter (i.e., starting in January). I tried to bring the pretty with this flyer I made, which would be hard not to do, given the luscious and/or otherwise compelling images that my selected directors have so generously furnished in their films. Here's the write-up for the course, in case it's too fuzzy in the jpeg:

In recent years, more and more women film directors have risen to global prominence, producing important bodies of work and winning major prizes around the world. In saluting this diverse and expanding tradition, this course nonetheless poses the question: what (if anything) is gained and what (if anything) is lost by reading these films with regard to the directors' gender? In what ways do these films confront and complicate longstanding debates about gender and authorship, representation, sexuality, chauvinism, beauty, violence, voyeurism, and pornography? Alternatively, what is at stake in sidelining questions of gender and critiquing these films as "just" films? In this course, we will closely examine work by several modern directors whose films cover a wide range of genres and modes, including action, drama, satire, horror, comedy, political allegory, and the avant-garde. They also hail from such disparate areas of the globe as North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific. While mastering some basic concepts of film analysis, we will also consider some key ideas in feminist theory and trace some of the public debates that shaped these films and their reception.

Huge kudos to anyone who can name all the films or makers based on these snapshots. But my question for you is, who else would you have wanted to see included as part of this class? I can sneak in plenty more stuff in lectures and through on-line clips. You know you want the undergraduates of Northwestern to be seeing all the best stuff. For the purposes of this class, "contemporary" means the last ten or fifteen years (though I'm cheating for Peel).

I already have a list of who I was sad to leave out, but I'll learn more from hearing your suggestions. Let loose! Just, you know, don't suggest Twilight.