This five-week class explores the celebrated work of American director Ava DuVernay, as part of the one-credit auteur series of courses exploring race, class, gender and sexuality in the Melodrama genre. This auteur series seeks to investigate how the Melodrama – a film genre typically associated with Classic Hollywood – has historically and contemporarily been utilized to simultaneously reinforce and subvert hegemonic ideals in the filmic construction of identity, the individual and society. American filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s body of work seeks to interrogate American society and history through lenses of race, class and gender by crafting highly stylized pieces and stirring storylines that center Black women’s narratives, experiences and subjectivities. While her oeuvre is not limited to the genre of the Melodrama, she has nonetheless used cinematic techniques of this style in order to create her own unique tableau. Films/works looked at in this course may include the following: “Selma”, “I Will Follow”, “Middle of Nowhere”, “13th” and episodes of “Queen Sugar.”