Reversing the Lens: Ethnicity, Race, Gender, and Sexuality through Film / Edition 1

by Jun Xing, Lane Ryo Hirabayashi

Overview

Reversing the Lens brings together noted scholars in history, anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies and film studies to promote film as a powerful classroom tool that can be used to foster cross-cultural communication with respect to race and ethnicity. Through such films as Skin Deep, Slaying the Dragon, and Mississippi Masala, contributors demonstrate why and how visual media help delineate various forms of "critical visual thinking" and examine how racialization is either sedimented or contested in the popular imagination. Not limited to classroom use, Reversing the Lens is relevant to anyone who is curious about how video and film can be utilized to expose race as a social construction in dialogue with other potential forms of difference and subject to political contestation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870817250
Publisher:	University Press of Colorado
Publication date:	04/28/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jun Xing is a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and director of the Difference, Power and Discrimination Program at Oregon State University, and author of Asian America Through the Lens: History, Representations, and Identity, and Baptized in the Fire of Revolution: The American Social Gospel and the YMCA in China, 1919-1937.Lane Ryo Hirabayashi is The George and Sakaye Aratani Professor of the Japanese American Incarceration, Redress, and Community at UCLA, and author and editor of numerous titles, including Reversing the Lens (UPC), Common Ground (UPC), The Politics of Fieldwork: Research in an American Concentration Camp and Teaching Asian America: Diversity & the Problem of Community.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	ix
	Preface	xiii
	Acknowledgments	xv
Part I	Beyond the Image
1	Introduction	3
2	Media Empowerment, Smashing Stereotypes, and Developing Empathy	11
Part II	Representing Racialized Communities
3	Video Constructions of Asian America: Teaching Monterey's Boat People	29
4	American Indians in Film: Thematic Contours of Cinematic Colonization	43
5	El Espejo/The Mirror: Reflections of Cultural Memory	113
6	Mississippi Masala: Crossing Desire and Interest	127
7	Skin Deep: Using Video to Teach Race and Critical Thinking	143
Part III	Ethnicity, Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Representation
8	Confronting Gender Stereotypes of Asian American Women: Slaying the Dragon	155
9	Screens and Bars: Confronting Cinema Representations of Race and Crime	169
10	The Queering of Chicana Studies: Philosophy, Text, and Image	185
11	The Matrix: Using American Popular Film to Teach Concepts of Eastern Mysticism	197
12	Beyond the Hollywood Hype: Unmasking State Oppression Against People of Color	213
Part IV	Retrospect and Prospects
13	Self, Society, and the "Other": Using Film to Teach About Ethnicity and Race	231
14	The Issue of Reinscription: Pedagogical Responses	241
	Selected Filmography	249
	List of Contributors	249
	Index	261

Editorial Reviews

"This book is of exceptional value. . . . what the book does it does more usefully, more provocatively, than any other book."
—P. H. Stacey, Choice 

"Well written, concise, and descriptive. . . . this book will answer many questions as well as stimulate discussions. Highly recommended."
—Kim L. Morrison, MultiCultural Review

From the Publisher