ENG580: Introduction to Cultural Studies and Popular Culture
Course Schedule, Spring 07
Week One
R 1.11: Introduction
Introduction to Culture and Cultural Studies
Week Two
R 1.18:
"What is Popular Culture?" and "The Culture and Civlization Tradition" (PCI 1-29)
The Culture and Civilization Tradition (PCR 3-19)
Adorno and Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry"
Week Three
R 1.25: "Culturalism" (PCI 29-44)
Culturalism (PCR 23-61)
Wikipedia entry "Cultural Studies" and "Popular Culture" (as well as your own web research)
Grossberg, "Where is the "America" in American Cultural Studies?"
Hall, "Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies"
Week Four
R 2.1: During, Parts 1-3 (1-107)
Introduction to Theoretical Methods
Week Five
R 2.8: "Marxisms" (47-70)
Marxism (PCR 68-184)
Week Six:
R 2.15: "Psychoanalysis" (71-85), "Structuralism and Post-structuralism" (87-104)
Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", "Myth Today" (PCR 293)
Macherey "Jules Verne" (318)
Weedon "Feminism and the Principles of Poststructuralist Theory" (354)
Week Seven
R 2.22: "Gender and Sexuality" (105-127)
During, Part 6: Sexuality and Gender (169)
Radway, "Reading Reading the Romance" (215)
Kipnis "(Male) Desire and (Female) Disgust: Reading Hustler"
Week Eight
R 3.1: "Postmodernism" (129-152)
During, Part 5: Identity (143)
West "Black Postmodernist Practices" (425)
hooks "Postmodern Blackness" (454)
First Paper Due.
Week Nine
No Class.
Week Ten
Media: Fiction
R 3.15: Octavia Butler's Kindred
Angelyn Mitchell, "Not Enough of the Past: Feminist Revisions of Slavery in Octavia E. Butler's Kindred"
Lisa Yaszek, "A Grim Fantasy: Remaking History in Octavia Butler's Kindred"
Week Eleven
Media: Film
R 3.22: John Ford, The Searchers
Wright, "The Structure of Myth & the Structure of the Western Film" (303)
Buscombe, The Searchers
Week Twelve
Media: Television
R 3.29: Ang, "Dallas and the Ideology of Mass Culture" (189)
Geraghty "Soap Opera and Utopia" (246)
Fiske, "The Popular Economy" (557)
During, Part 4: Media and the Public Sphere (107)
Week Fourteen
Media: Music
R 4.12: Goodwin "Popular Music and Postmodern Theory" (440)
Doyle, "Blue Shadows on the Trail"
Taylor's "Music, Technology, Agency, and Practice"
Frith "The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent" (586)
Frith "Music and Everyday Life"
Griffiths, "The High Analysis of Low Music"
Middleton "Music Studies and the Idea of Culture"
Week Fifteen
R 4.19: Culture and Everyday Life
de Certeau "The Practice of Everyday Life" (516)
Gibian, "Shopping Center Spaces"
Eisenbeis, "Mall of the Wild"
Morris "Things to do with Shopping Centres"
Olalquiaga, "The Intoxication of Modernity"
DiMaggio, "Cultural Entrepreneurship in 19th cen. Boston" (488)
Week Sixteen
R 4.26 Last Class, Final Paper Due.
Wicke, "Review: Through a Gaze Darkly: Pornography's Academic Market"
Penley, "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture"
Johnson, "What is Cultural Studies Anyway?"