Teaching 'the world' through film: possibilities and limitations

This chapter considers the constraints and possibilities of teaching ‘world and transnational cinema.’ We take as a case study our own unit, “World and Transnational Cinema” that we co-developed and team-taught between 2007 and 2014, and reflect on choices of film texts and themes. Within the chapter we discuss and interrogate our own choices and knowledge base, our use of the terms ‘world’ and ‘transnational cinema’, and the debates we have had in devising the course. Ideologically, we consider our theoretical choices in the decisions made and our attempts to engage in what Shohat and Stam (2003) have termed ‘the multiculturalist project’, that is to ensure that curriculum (school/university) reflects diversity and does not work to promote the interests of privileged (colonial) dominant classes. We also reflect on our desire to be part of a project to ‘de-Westernise’ Film Studies (Ba, Higbee, 2012), while inhabiting our subject positions as British academics teaching predominantly (white) British students. From a pedagogical position, the political nature of this unit is discussed in relation to ideas of the Hidden Curriculum (Jackson, 1968); the underlying aim being to politicize the student body.