Zhang Ziyi

I just read from the blog of my friend that they have chosen Zhang Ziyi to play Sayuri in the very famous novel "Memoirs of a Geisha." Michelle Yeoh plays Mameha while Ken Watanabe will play the Chairman.

If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, go read the book before you watch the film.

Regularity, Quiz and Reviews

After a series of holidays, we will resume our class on Saturday, August 28, 2004 at F513 Viewing Room. I enjoin you to come on time so that we will not go beyond four o'clock.

ON QUIZ AND EARLY BIRDS
I would like also to remind you that starting this week, I will implement a regular quiz schedule to encourage early arrival of students. I will conduct the quiz on the first ten minutes of the class, i.e. 1:00 - 1:10 PM every Saturday. Coverage of the quiz will be the previous week movie and lectures.


MOVIE REFLECTIONS AND REVIEWS
I notice that some reviews do not discuss at all the theme and motif of the movies we have watched. Please do discuss them in your next review to recoup lost points from your previous papers. Just a note, do not wait till a week before you make your movie reviews. I advise you to make your movie critique or review right after we have watched the movies. And most of all, please put your reference footnotes if you have quoted a phrase or two from the internet. Some may have inadvertently forgotten to put the references due to some circumstances. I will not hesitate to file a plagiarism case against you next time. I have WARNED you already.

Further Readings

# Feminism & Pornography, by Drucilla Cornell (Oxford University Press, 2000). This edited volume provides excellent information about the pornography debate among feminists. Includes articles from many different perspectives: those who use pornography, who fight against it, those who are trying to change its meaning. Examines the role of law in regulating pornography, how the meaning & definition of pornography has changed over time, the unionization question, whether pornography is art, the free speech question, and so forth.

Also by Cornell: The Imaginary Domain: Abortion, Pornography, Sexual Harassment (Routledge, 1995) and At the Heart of Freedom: Feminism, Sex and Equality (Princeton UP, 1998)
# Only Words, by Catharine MacKinnon (Harvard UP, 1993). About the philosophical and legal basis of efforts to make pornography illegal (ordinances passed in passed in Minneapolis & Indianapolis.
# Female Sexual Slavery, by Kathleen Barry (New York UP, 1979). Classic cross-cultural study and analysis. Deals with the relationship between the pornography industry in the US and Europe and its relationship to the worldwide institutionalized sexual slavery of women and children. Barry argues that pornography is a form of prostitution, and therefore there can be no separation of pornography from the institution of prostitution more generally.
# Making Violence Sexy, by Diana E. H. Russell (NY: Teacher’s College Press, 1993). Presents anti-pornography feminist view.
# Pornography: Woman, Violence, and Civil Liberties, edited by Diana Itzin. Collection of essays that explore civil rights/liberties dimension of pornography.
# The Invention of Pornography, edited by Lynn Hunt (Zone Books, 1993). Essays that explore the historical development of pornography, changes in laws & definitions, etc.
# Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights, by Nadine Strossen (Scribners, 1995).
# Women and Prostitution: A Social History, by Bonnie Bullogh (Promethius Books, 1987).