Topics in 19th- and 20th-Century French Literature and Culture: New Wave Cinemas

This course will investigate the development of New Wave cinema in the 1960's. Emphasis will be placed on the French nouvelle vague led by directors including Godard, Truffaut, Rouch, Varda, and Eustache, with subsections on the Czechoslovak and Brazilian cinematic new wave movements. The course will investigate both the specific cinematic languages developed by these various directors, as well as the political context of the 1950's and 60's in which these movements developed as critical, often militant interventions against hegemonic cultural and political elites.