In the later 20th century, Alfred Hitchcock's reputation underwent a significant critical reevaluation. No longer viewed as merely the "Master of Suspense" he--and his work--became central objects of poststructuralist thought, embraced not only by film theorists but by world-renowned philosophers and critical theorists. This is a course on both Hitchcock's films and 20th- and 21st-century critical theory. In addition to viewing the films, we will read key texts by Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze, Freud, Fredric Jameson, Jacques Lacan, Laura Love, Jacques Rancière, Tzvetan Todorov, Slavoj Žižek (and others. We will develop skills in close cinematic analysis and the parsing of theoretical texts, while exploring keywords in literary, media, and performance theory (narrative, apparatus, ideology, dispositif, subject, performativity, affect, gaze, fetish, frame, screen, theatrically, etc.)
Interested students should email Professor Peters (peters@columbia.edu) a brief note, specifying the reasons they'd like to take the class and identifying any relevant experience.