English 190

Book List

Williams, Tennessee: A Streetcar Named Desire

Other Readings and Media

Film texts by Pedro Almodóvar:  All About My Mother; Bad Education; Broken Embraces; The Flower of My Secret; Law of Desire; Pepi, Luci, Bom; The Skin I Live In; Talk to Her; Volver; Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Intertexts for Pedro Almodóvar:  Luis Buñuel, Viridiana; John Cassavetes, Opening Night; Georges Franju, Eyes without a Face; Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ; Rainer Werner Fassbinder, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant; Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo; Joseph Mankiewicz, All About Eve; Roberto Rosselini, Voyage to Italy

Description

Tabloid, soap opera, camp, porn, classicism, citation, stories-within-stories, films-within-films—these are some of the styles and devices that Pedro Almodovar mixes together to render a subject matter typically consisting of exorbitant and often taboo sexual compulsion. The course will ask students to reflect on the interrelation between a heterogeneous form and the aberrancy of desire, and between highly plot-propelled stories and erotic drivenness.

Seminar members are required to write weekly response papers in addition to a final paper.  A willingness to participate in class discussion is also a must.

Please read the paragraph on page 2 of the instructions area of this Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in or wait-listing for this course.