From Bombay to Cairo: Cinema and Social Change
Explore how cinematic transformations of literary texts and the historical event inspire social and political revolution.
From Bombay to Cairo: Cinema and Social Change
Offered fall 2019
India and Egypt were colonized by the British Empire for many long decades, and they have developed prolific film industries since their independence. Students in this learning community will explore the postcolonial cinemas of cosmopolitan Bombay and Cairo, which are widely influential in both societies.
This learning community will focus especially on how these cinemas subversively adapt key literary texts of global literature, represent radical thought, and actively depict resistance movements. While filmmakers in Bombay have adventurously introduced revisionary appropriations of Shakespeare’s plays, others in Egypt fearlessly participated in major movements of social reform and used their art as a medium of political activism.
In the course, English 247 Shakespeare in the Colonies, students will explore examples of Indian cinema and postcolonial literary works to analyze what happens to Shakespeare when he travels to the colonies. In History 247 Cinema Social Movements and Revolution in Egypt, students will read historical analyses and watch important films that served as cornerstones in the formation of the country’s rebellious ideologies and movements of resistance against social and state repression. This period includes the 1950s until the 2011 youth uprisings known as the “Arab spring.”
Each course in the learning community focuses on cinematic and literary adaptations; each course is linked as well through its use of the postcolonial and social movement theories that frame how (non-western) postcolonial cultures have interacted with the culture of their former (English) colonizers, as well as account for social change.
Oberlin students in From Bombay to Cairo will have the opportunity to connect with their peers and discuss these topics with comparative literature students at the American University in Cairo.
ENGL 247 and HIST 247 are both required for enrollment in this learning community.
Instructors
Course instructors for this learning community are Associate Professor of History Zeinab Abul-Magd and Donald R. Longan Professor of English Anuradha (Anu) Needham.