Controlling people's minds through propaganda is an integral part of fascist regimes' totalitarianism. In the interwar, cinema, a relatively recent mass media, was immediately seized upon by fascist regimes to produce aggrandizing national narratives, justify their expansionist and extermination policies, celebrate the myth of the "Leader," and indoctrinate the people. Yet film makers under these regimes (Rossellini) or just after their fall used the same media to explore and expose how they manufactured conformism, obedience, and mass murder and to interrogate fascism. We will watch films produced by or under European fascist regimes (Nazi Germany, Italy under Mussolini, Greece's Regime of the Colonels) but also against them, as well as documentary and fiction looking back at this historical period post-war. Focus is on film analysis, media studies, history and conceptualization of fascism. Discussion and written assignments in ENGLISH. Films with English subtitles.
3-5 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
Controlling people's minds through propaganda is an integral part of fascist regimes' totalitarianism. In the interwar, cinema, a relatively recent mass media, was immediately seized upon by fascist regimes to produce aggrandizing national narratives, justify their expansionist and extermination policies, celebrate the myth of the "Leader," and indoctrinate the people. Yet film makers under these regimes (Rossellini) or just after their fall used the same media to explore and expose how they manufactured conformism, obedience, and mass murder and to interrogate fascism. We will watch films produced by or under European fascist regimes (Nazi Germany, Italy under Mussolini, Greece's Regime of the Colonels) but also against them, as well as documentary and fiction looking back at this historical period post-war. Focus is on film analysis, media studies, history and conceptualization of fascism. Discussion and written assignments in ENGLISH. Films with English subtitles.
Offered in Winter 2026 at Stanford University.