| Week 1 |
Defining Culture and the Popular |
| 01/05 |
Introduction to
course,
policies, and film challenges |
| In-class reading: Williams,
"Culture"
and
"Masses"
(handout) |
|
| Week 2 |
Defining Culture-Mass-Popular |
| 1/12 |
Readings: Leavis, "Mass Civilization and Minority Culture" (PC: A Reader); MacDonald, "A Theory of Mass Culture" (PC); Morag Shiach, "The Popular" (PC); Hall, "Notes on Deconstructing 'the Popular'" (PC) |
| Popular Object: Bring your own favorite popular
text or piece of popular culture (can be a link on your discussion post) |
|
| Week 3 |
Commodities and the Culture Industry |
| 1/19 |
Readings: Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (PC); Adorno, "The Culture Industry Reconsidered" (PC); Debord, "The Commodity as Spectacle" (PC) |
| Screening: Easy Street (Chaplin, 1917) |
|
| Week 4 |
Postmodern Culture and Texts |
| 1/26 |
Critical Readings: Jameson, "Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture" (PC); Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (excerpt from chapter one) |
| Novel: Delillo,
White Noise |
|
| Popular Tastes/Objects and Forms of Consumption | |
| Week 5 | The Wonderful World of
Disney |
| 2/2 |
Readings: Wasko, "Corporate Disney in Action" (PC); Giroux, "Animating Youth: The
Disneyfication of Children's Culture" (Course Den) |
| |
Screening: The Little Mermaid (clip), Snow White (opening); True Love's Kiss (tribute); The Disneyland Story (part I) |
| Week 6 | Watching Television/Becoming Television |
| 2/9 |
Readings: Ang, "Dallas and
the Ideology of Mass Culture" (CourseDen); Jenkins, "Buying Into American Idol: How We Are Being
Sold on Reality Television" (CourseDen) |
| Screening:
Television shows - How I Met Your Mother
(pilot episode) and Twin
Peaks (pilot episode); Twin Peaks -
Cooper's Dream (clip); The Biggest Loser (reality
tv) |
|
| Week 7 |
Fandom and the Productive Consumer |
| 2/16 |
Readings: Jenkins, "Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching" (PC); Tosenberger, " 'Oh my God, the Fanfiction!' Dumbledore's Outing and the Online Harry Potter Fandom" (CourseDen); Russo, "User-Penetrated Content: Fan Video in the Age of Convergence" (CourseDen) |
| Screening:
Trekkies (Nygard, 1997) |
|
| Week 8 |
Child's Play: The Panics Around Comics and
Video Games |
| 2/23 | Readings: Gilbert, "Crusade Against Mass Culture" (CourseDen); Rak, "The Electric Self" (CourseDen); Shivel, "World of Warcraft" (CourseDen); McCloud, "Understanding Comics" (CourseDen, but you don't have to print it out); McCloud, "Understanding Comics, Part II" (CourseDen, recommended reading) |
| Popular Texts: Sandman, vol. 1 (CourseDen, but you don't have to print it out); World of Warcraft website; Second Life website; | |
| Week 10 |
Horror Film and the Boundaries of Film Art |
| 3/2 |
Readings: Hawkins, "Sleaze Mania, Euro-Trash and High Art: The Place of European Art Films in American Low Culture" (PC); Williams, "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess" (CourseDen); Tudor, "Why Horror? The Peculiar Pleasures of a Popular Genre" (CourseDen) |
| Screening: The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre (Hooper, 1974) |
|
| March 7-13 | Spring Break - NO CLASSES |
| Case Study: Subcultures and
Subcultural Practice |
|
| Week 11 |
Subcultures |
| 3/16 |
Readings: Hebdige, "Subculture" (PC); Thornton, "The Media Development of 'Subcultures' " (PC) |
| Screening: Filth and the Fury (Temple, 2000) |
|
| Research Prospectus Due | |
| Week 12 |
Hip Hop Style/Subcultural Practice |
| 3/23 |
Readings: Rose, "A Style Nobody Can Deal With" (PC); Cashmore, "America's Paradox" (PC); Gilroy, "Wearing Your Art on Your Sleeve" (PC) |
| |
Screening: Style Wars (Silver, 1983) |
| Recommended Screening: Rhyme and Reason (Spirer, 1997) |
|
| Week 13 |
Gender, Sexuality and Performance |
| 3/30 |
Readings: Halberstam, "Drag Kings: Masculinity and Performance" (PC); Fuchs, "If I Had a Dick: Queers, Punks, and Alternative Acts" (PC) |
| Screening: Venus Boyz (Baur, 2002) | |
| Week 14 |
Global Cultures, Postcolonial Identities |
| 4/06 |
Readings: Gopinath, "Bombay, UK, Yuba City" (PC); Lipsitz, "Diasporic Noise: History, Hip Hop, and the Post-Colonial Politics of Sound" (PC); Grewal, "Traveling Barbie: Indian Transnationality and New Consumer Subjects" (PC) |
| Screening: video
for
"Bangra Bistar" (Di Bole Hadippa, 2009); Fela Kuti in
performance; Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour |
|
| Week 15 |
The Critic of Popular Culture |
| 4/13 |
Annotated Bibliography
Presentations |
| Reading: Fiske, "Popular Discrimination" (PC); Hall, "Cultural Studies and
Its Theoretical Legacies" (CourseDen) |
|
| Week 16 |
MONDAY, 04/18 INTRO ROUGH DRAFT DUE ON-LINE by 12:00 pm (at least 5 pages) |
| 4/20 |
Annotated
Bibliography
Presentations |
| Discussion
of
Rough
Drafts
and
Research
Projects |
|
| 5/04 |
Research
Paper
Due
by
5:00
pm |