Political crises often lead to powerful and provocative images and stories. This course looks at cinema and media from and about some of the world's most contentious political hotspots, including Southeast Asia, Afghanistan and Iran, Israel and the Arab world, and the U.S.A. Surveying both fiction and documentary works, the course will interrogate concepts of national memory, propaganda, colonialism, and “the war film” along with theories of trauma, ideology, class, race, gender, and “the Other.” The course will also examine whether images and stories can lead to social and political change. Combining historical and aesthetic approaches, the class will survey films concerning WWII (Triumph of the Will), the war in Vietnam (Hearts and Minds), the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (Paradise Now; Waltz with Bashir) and U.S. films and media such as The Parallax View, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Get Out, among others.