EAS394H1S Summer 2023
Film Culture in Contemporary China
Mondays and Wednesdays 1-4pm, RW 142
Instructor: Dr. Xi Chen
Email: sunny.chen@mail.utoronto.ca (emails will be replied within 72 hours)
Office: RL14372A (14th Floor, Robarts Library)
Office Hour: Mondays 4:30-5:30 pm or by appointment
Course Description and Objectives:
This course discusses documentary films, feature films, and digital video (DV) culture in contemporary China as forms of cultural, collective, and political practices. We focus on films and videos that seek to address important global issues such as labor, migration, the human-animal relationship, waste, the toxic materials in the age of planetary ecological crisis. We ask: What new tendencies are there in the films and videos? Where can we trace them back to? What fresh possibilities do they bring forth to our aesthetic and public life? How do the films and videos provide eco-critical perspectives that form ways of seeing the relationship between humans and nonhuman beings, materials, and environment? The goal of this course is to cultivate aesthetic, political, and ethical sensibilities towards marginalized groups and nonhuman nature through Chinese-language films and videos. In the process of the course, we will also learn analytical skills from contemporary Chinese film studies.
Readings and Course Materials:
All required readings will be available via Quercus. Media sources will be made available online or via University of Toronto Libraries.
Course Evaluation and Requirements:
Marking Scheme
Assignments
Weight
Due Dates
Attendance and Participation
15%
/
Group Presentation
10%
Sign up in the first class
Weekly Responses
25% (5% x 5)
Fridays, 5 pm.
Short Essay
25%
July 28, Friday, midnight.
Final Project
25% (10%+15%)
Oral and/or multi-media presentation due on Aug. 15 in class, written report due on Aug. 20, midnight.
Requirements
–Attendance 5%
Except the first and the last classes, each class includes a session for film viewing and a session for presentations, lecture, and discussions. The film viewing session starts at 1 pm and ends at 2:30 pm. The lecture/discussion session starts at 2:40 pm and ends at 4 pm. All students are required to complete the assigned readings BEFORE attending the class. All students are expected to watch the assigned film together during the viewing session and complete watching the remaining part of the film after the class if the film is longer than the scheduled viewing time. However, the group presenters should watch the film BEFORE class for their presentations. They may skip the viewing session with the permission of the instructor. All students will be allowed one free excused absence to be used anytime during the semester. After that, excused absences will be granted only for extenuating circumstances such as illness, family emergency, or required participation in a university activity. Students must email the instructor before class for an excused absence. Unexcused absences will result in a “0” for the attendance and participation grade for that day.
–Participation 10%
Students are expected to arrive prepared to participate actively in class discussion. Each student will prepare one short question or one short comment regarding the film and/or readings for class discussion. Each student will either speak about her/his question in class or comment in class or write them down on a piece of paper and submit it to the instructor by the end of the class.
Here is how participation is evaluated:
0 –4 Misses classes or did neither watch the assigned film nor bring course reading materials.
5 -6 Brings assigned readings and one question or comment to class, participates in the class discussions.
7-8 Brings texts and questions (or comments) to class, draws on these in class participation, makes contributions to the discussions in class.
9-10. Brings excellent questions or comments, participates in discussions, makes thoughtful contributions, listens, and responds helpfully to other students, contributes positively to class learning.
–Group Presentation 10%
Each student will sign up for one presentation throughout the semester. Students will work collaboratively to give a presentation in 10-15 minutes at the beginning of class on the film assigned for that day. Each presentation will be worth 10 points. Students will be graded as a group, with each member of the group receiving the same grade. Thus, you are strongly encouraged to work as collaboratively as possible. Each group presentation will start at 2:40 pm promptly on the day of class meeting. The presentation will be evaluated by these factors: *the clarity of presentation (1 points), *how well it introduces and engages with the assigned film (4 points), *how well it grasps the main arguments of the readings (3 points), and *contribution to class discussion and understanding (2 points). Any presentation that is longer than 15 minutes will affect the grade.
The form of the presentation can be creative. But each presentation should include the following elements:
1) Introduce the film: Introduce the film director or related filmmakers, the time/place the film was made, the time/place that the film is set.
2) You may choose to interpret what you see as any major social, political, and environmental issues expressed in the film, and explain how you see these issues expressed. Or you may focus on illustrating the ethics, emotions, moral sensibilities expressed or mediated in the film, and explain how these ethics, emotions expressed. Include an analysis of one or two scenes from the film (a screenshot or a video clip) to support your interpretation. In your analysis, you can look at things like plot, character, dialogue, visual composition, use of camera angles, music or other sound, costume, lighting, etc.
3) Explain any major arguments made in the assigned readings for that day AND raise one or two questions for class discussion. You can show one or two quotes from the readings to support your explanation.
One group member should upload the presentation slides on Quercus Discussion Board by 12 pm on the day of your group presentation. A guide for uploading slides will be sent to the class.
Presentations must address the assigned readings. Students are also encouraged to include additional information based upon external online or printed resources beyond the course materials. Please provide the information of the external resources you use (such as website links or social media posts).
–Weekly Responses 25%
From week 2 to week 6, submit a one-page response on the assigned films and readings (no longer than 250 words) by the end of each week (Fridays, 5 pm). In total each student should submit 5 responses. Each response counts for 5%. Each response should address at least one film and two readings from that week. Each response should include a short analysis of one or two scenes from the film and explain the significance of the chosen scenes. Moreover, the response should engage the film with the readings. The following questions will guide students to write the weekly responses though students do not have to answer them all:
1. What kinds of events, issues, ethics, emotions are mediated through the films? How does the film affect you? What intrigues you most?
2. What is the main point that the readings make? Do the readings enhance your understanding of the films? Do you agree or disagree with the arguments of the readings and why?
3. What is your thought or question after viewing the film, finishing the readings, and attending the class?
Bullet-point responses will not be accepted. A mere summary of the film plot will result in “0” point.
–Short Essay 25%
Submit a short essay (4 pages, double space, 12-point font, no more than 1000 words excluding bibliography) on Quercus by July 28, 11:59 pm. The goal of the essay is to focus on one issue, such as labor, the ecological cost of modernization, the human-animal relationship, and analyze how selected films engage with this issue. The essay should include at least two assigned films and three course readings. No outside research is allowed for this assignment. Arguments of the essay should be based on your own personal interpretation and analysis of the films and the readings. Guided questions and marking scheme for the essay will be provided.
–Final Project 25%
There will no final exam or final paper. Instead, students will submit a creative final project. The goal of the final project is to encourage students to apply what they learn from the course to view and analyze some other films outside the course and to take actions as engaged citizens. The final project may go in one of the following two directions: 1) Students may introduce one Chinese-language film that is not listed on the syllabus to your classmates and the public. The final project should explain to the instructor, classmates, and other potential audience why the film matters for the course and more broadly for the public. The format of the final project is open. It can be a short video, a sample of a short podcast, or a film review for film festivals or art exhibitions. 2) Students may create a story based on a film listed in the syllabus. The goal of the story is to “stage” nonhuman beings and nature and draw attention to what is invisible, absent, insensible in the film. For example, the story can imagine how Wolf Totem will be told through the eyes of wolves, how coal, river dams, plastic bags, smog would write their material memoir in the age of the environmental change.
The final project will be evaluated based on an oral and/or multi-media presentation (10%) and a written report (15%). Each student will do a 5-minute presentation to introduce her/his final project in the last class. Moreover, students will submit a written report to demonstrate the final project by Aug. 20. The report must not exceed 3 pages, 750 words excluding bibliography. The report may include images and website links. A marking scheme of the final project will be sent to the class.
Late Penalty
Each student will be allowed one 48-hour extension for any one of the written assignments during the semester, including one weekly response, short essay, and the final project report. After the one-chance extension, any written assignment will only be accepted with a 10% penalty for each 24 hours after it is due. For any extenuating circumstances such as illness, please email the instructor at least 48 hours before the deadline.
Writing Help
For resources to improve your writing, consult the U of T Writing Centre website: http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/advise.html
Academic Integrity
Essays must represent the work of the student and cite all sources in a recognized format (e.g. MLA style). To take credit in any way for work that is not one’s own without acknowledging the source(s) counts as plagiarism and cheating. All suspected cases will be forwarded to the Office of Student Academic Integrity according to FAS rules. For more specific ways to avoid this, consult the following webpage: http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/using-sources/how-not-to-plagiarize
Students will be required to submit their written coursework to the University’s plagiarism detection tool for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible plagiarism. In doing so, students will allow their essays to be included as source documents in the tool’s reference database, where they will be used solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University’s use of this tool are described on the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation web site (https://uoft.me/pdt-faq).
Accessibility Needs
Uof T is committed to accessibility. If you require accommodations or have any accessibility concerns, please visit: http://studentlife.utoronto.ca/accessibility .
Schedule of Classes
Week 1: Introduction
Wed. July 5: Course Overview, Sign up for Presentations
Week 2: “Resource”, Labor, and Post-socialist Landscape
Mon. July 10: West of the Tracks: Rust 铁西区: 工厂 (2000, dir. Wang Bin 王兵)
Reading: Chris Berry, Lu Xinyu and Lisa Rofel eds, The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement, 15-48, 57-76.
Wed. July 12: Blind Shaft 盲井 (2003, dir. Li Yang 李扬)
Reading: Ban Wang, “Of Humans and Nature in Documentary: The Logic of Capital in West of the Tracks and Blind Shaft” in Chinese Ecocinema, 157-170.
Recommended but not required: Rey Chow,”’Human’ in the Age of Disposable People: The Ambiguous Import of Kinship and Education in Blind Shaft” in A Time for the Humanities, 94-106.
Week 3: Big Dams, Migrants, and the Picture of Ruins
Mon. July 17: Before the Flood 淹没 (2005, dir. Li Yifan and Yan Yu 李一凡、鄢雨)
Reading: Jason McGrath, “The Cinema of Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam in Feature Film and Video,” in Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art, 33-46.
Dai Qing ed., Yangtze Yangtze, selected chapters below:
https://journal.probeinternational.org/1994/05/31/chapter-19/
https://journal.probeinternational.org/1994/05/31/chapter-29/
https://journal.probeinternational.org/1994/05/31/appendix-3/
Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, 150-154.
Wed. July 19: Still Life 三峡好人 (2006, dir. Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯)
Reading: Pheng Cheah, “World as Picture and Ruination: On Jia Zhangke’s Still Life as World Cinema,” in The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas, 190-206.
Corey Byrnes, “Specters of Realism and the Painter’s Gaze in Jia Zhangke’s Still Life,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, vol. 24, no. 2, 2012, pp. 52–93.
Week 4: Animals and Ethnic Minorities
Mon. July 24: Wolf Totem 狼图腾 (2015, dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud)
Reading: Yanhong Zhu, “The Human and the Beast: Humanity, Animality, and Cultural Critique in Contemporary Chinese Cinema,” Chinese Literature Today, 7:1(2018), 107-117.
Haomin Gong, “Transcendence and transgression: Reading Wolf Totem as environmental world literature/cinema?” in Ecology and Chinese Language Cinema: Reimagining a Field, 141-165.
Wed. July 26: Old Dog 老狗 (2011, dir. Pema Tseden 万玛才旦)
Reading: Kwai-Cheung Lo, “Animals, Ethnic Minorities, and Ecological Concerns in Chinese Digital Cinema,” in Chinese Shock of the Anthropocene, p.225-248.
Short essay due on July 28, Friday, 11:59 pm.
Week 5: Waste, Recycling, and the Disposable Life
Mon. July 31: Beijing Besieged by Waste 垃圾围城 (2011, dir. Wang Jiuliang 王久良)
Reading: Haomin Gong, “Place, Animals, and Human Beings: The Case of Wang Jiuliang’s Beijing Besieged by Waste,”in Chinese Environmental Humanities, 167-185.
Carlos Rojas, “The World Besieged by Waste: On Garbage, Recycling, and Sublimation,” in Chinese Shock of the Anthropocene, 21-34.
Wed. Aug. 2: Plastic China 塑料王国 (2016, dir. Wang Jiuliang 王久良)
Reading: Jin Liu, “Dislocation and displacement: An analysis of Wang Jiuliang’s Plastic China,” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2020, vol. 14, no. 3, 181–198.
Meiqin Wang, “Waste, Pollution, and Environmental Activism: Wang Jiuliang and the Power of Documenting,” Socially Engaged Art in Contemporary China, p.53-81.
Week 6: Smog Crisis and the Politics of Air/Qi
Mon. Aug. 7: Civic holiday, no class
Wed. Aug. 9: Under the Dome 穹顶之下 (2015, dir. Chai Jing 柴静)
Reading: Shuqin Cui, “Chai Jing’s Under the Dome: a multimedia documentary in the digital age,” in Ecology and Chinese Language Cinema: Reimagining a Field, 141-165.
Chang, Chia-Ju. “Life Outside the Dome: The Possibility of Aerophilia in the Anthropocene,” Prism 18, no. 1 (March 1, 2021): 188–209.
Week 7: The Earth Home in Crisis
Mon. Aug. 14: The Wandering Earth 流浪地球 (2019, dir. Guo Fan 郭帆)
Reading: Zhuoyi Wang, “Between the World Ship and the Spaceship,” Prism (Durham, N.C.), vol. 18, no. 1, 2021, pp. 210–34.
Wed. Aug. 15 (make-up class): Presentations on Final Project
Final project written report due on Aug. 20, 11:59 pm.
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