Course Description
Summary
In 1976 James Baldwin wrote his short work of film criticism The Devil Finds Work while in self-imposed exile in France. The work presents a personal film historical narrative as well as an intervention into the politics of aesthetics and the politics of visual cultural life from the perspective of a writer grappling with the realities of living as Queer and Black in the 20th century. The Devil Finds Work forms the spine of this course. We will read the text closely cover to cover and engage/watch with the broad spectrum of films it surfaces as a means through which to explore and understand more deeply how cinema shapes experience in general and in particular.
