AP/CLTR 2100 6.0A

Questioning Culture

Term: Fall/Winter2016-17

Lecture: Monday 19:00-21:00 (CC 108)

Course Instructor: Andreas Kitzmann,

Email:

Tel: 416 736-2100, x 88703

Office Hours: Monday: 3:00-4:30* Founders 321. Virtual Office hours (via Skype or Face Time) also available. See Moodle website for details.

*No office hours on Sept. 26, Oct. 31, Nov. 21, Dec. 5, Jan 23, Feb 27, March 20 and April 6. Alternate arrangements to be announced on Moodle website.

Tutorials

Tutorial 1: M: 17:30-18:30 in R N836 (Kitzmann)

Tutorial 2: M: 21:00-22:00in ACE 012 (TBA)

Course Description

Designed to introduce students to the theoretical study of contemporary culture in past and contemporary society, offering tools for questioning and decoding the social and political contexts of cultural production. Areas of focus include popular media, consumer culture, digital culture, technology, music, subcultures, issues of gender, ideology, race, nationalism, ethnicity and identity.

Readings

All of the readings will be drawn from online academic journals accessible through the York library using your Passport York account info. Direct links will be posted on the Moodle course web page associated with this course.

Course Learning Objectives

1)To develop critical tools which allow students to understand popular and contemporary culture beyond simple, determinist models.

2)To develop methodologies and research strategies that foster an interdisciplinary approach in the sense of working with historical sources, theoretical and philosophical ideas and informed critique.

3)To encourage an active engagement, whether critical or practical, with current forms of expressive/creative practice within mainstream culture.

Grading, Assignment Submission, Late Penalty and Other Info

Grading: The grading scheme for the course conforms to the 9-point grading system used in undergraduate programs at York (e.g., A+ = 9, A = 8, B+ - 7, C+ = 5, etc.). Assignments and testswill bear either a letter grade designation or a corresponding number grade (e.g. A+ = 90 to 100, A = 80 to 90, B+ = 75 to 79, etc.)

(For a full description of York grading system see the York University Undergraduate Calendar -

Students may take a limited number of courses for degree credit on an ungraded (pass/fail) basis. For full information on this option see Alternative Grading Option in the Atkinson Facultysection of the Undergraduate Calendar:

Assignment Submission: Proper academic performance depends on students doing their work not only well, but on time. Accordingly, assignments for this course must be received on the due date specified for the assignment. Assignments are to be handed in electronically directly to the course website via the Turnitin.com link. Please submit your assignment as a “doc” or PDF file.

Lateness Penalty: Assignments received later than the due date will be penalized at a reduction of 2% per school day with a one week maximum for submission. Exceptions to the lateness penalty for valid reasons such as illness, compassionate grounds, etc., may be entertained by the Course Instructor but will require supporting documentation (e.g., a doctor’s letter).

IMPORTANT COURSE INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS

All students are expected to familiarize themselves with the following information, available on the Senate Committee on Curriculum & Academic Standards webpage (see Reports, Initiatives, Documents) -

• York’s Academic Honesty Policy and Procedures/Academic Integrity Website

• Ethics Review Process for research involving human participants

• Course requirement accommodation for students with disabilities, including physical, medical, systemic, learning and psychiatric disabilities

• Student Conduct Standards

• Religious Observance Accommodation

Assignments

Essay 1: 15% (5 pages) – due Oct. 24

Essay 2: 15% (5 pages) – due Jan. 16

Essay 3: 20% (12 pages) – due March 20

In class exam 1: 15% - Dec. 5

In class exam 2: 15% - April 3

Online reading logs: 10%

Tutorial Participation and Attendance: 10%

Course Schedule

What is Culture and How do you Study it?

1) Sept. 12: course introduction and basic concepts

2) Sept. 19: overview of key methodologies

Readings

Nelson, Cary, Treichler, Paula, Grossberg, Lawrence. “Cultural Studies: An Introduction.” Cultural Studies, Grossberg, Nelson, Treichler, eds. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Culture and Ideology

3) Sept. 26: High Culture/ Low culture debates, mass culture debates

Readings

Faucher, Christine. “Informal Youth Cultural Practices: Blurring the Distinction between High and Low.” Visual Arts Research, Vol 42, No. 1, Issue 82, Summer 2016, pp. 56-70.

Robert Scholes. “Exploring the Great Divide: High and Low, Left and Right.” Narrative, Volume 11, Number 3, Oct. 2003, pp. 224-269.

4) Oct. 3: Questions of Ideology: Marx, Althusser, Gramsci, etc.

Reading

Powell, Helen and Prasad, Sylvie. “As Seen on TV” The Celebrity Expert: How Taste is Shaped by Lifestyle Media.” Cultural Politics, Vol. 6, Issue 1, March 2010, pp. 111-124.

Cheryl B. Torsney. “The Politics of Low and High Culture: Representations of Music in Some Recent Children’s Picture Books.” The Lion and the Unicorn, Volume 16, Number 2, Dec. 1992, pp. 176-183.

Discourse, Meaning and Power

5) Oct. 17: Semiotics – Saussure, Barthes, etc. How to “read” culture

Readings

Culler, Jonathan. “Barthes, Theorist.” The Yale Journal of Criticism 14.2 (2001), pp. 439-446.

Shelly R. Scott. “Conserving, Consuming, and Improving on Nature at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.” Theatre Topics 17.2 (2007) 111-127

6) Oct. 24: Foucault and Power

Readings

Foucault, Michel. “The Subject and Power.”Critical Inquiry, Vol., 8, No. 4 (Summer, 1982), pp. 777-795

***First Essay Due***

Biology, Identity and Power

7) Oct. 31: Reductionism, Essentialism and the Body

Readings

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999, pp. 833-44.

C.B. Davis. “Cultural Evolution and Performance Genres: Memetics in Theatre History and Performance Studies.” Theatre Journal 59.4 (2007) 595-614.

8) Nov. 7: Cyborgs and Post-Humanism

Badmington, Neil. “Theorizing Posthumanism” Cultural Critique, 53, Winter 2003, pp. 10-27.

Nishime, LeiLani. “The Mulatto Cyborg: Imagining a Multiracial Future.” Cinema Journal 44.2 (2005), 34-49.

Capitalism, Politics, Culture and Globalization

9) Nov 14: Fordism, post-fordism, post-industrialism, consumption

Readings

Rutherford, Jonathan. “The Culture of Capitalism.”Soundings, 38 (Spring 2008), pp. 8-18.

Ritzer, George and Jurgenson, Nathan. “Production, Consumption, Prosumption: the nature of capitalism in the age of the digital prosumer.” Journal of Consumer Culture. Vol 10: 1, 2010, pp. 13-36.

10) Nov. 21: globalization, state, politics and social movements

Readings

Bunten, Alexis Celeste. “More Like Ourselves: Indigenous Capitalism Through Tourism.” The American Indian Quarterly. Vol. 34, No. 3, Summer 2010,pp. 285-311.

Postmodernism and Identity

11) Nov. 28: modernism vs postmodernism – major critiques

Readings

Hassan, Ihab. “From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: The Local/Global Context. Philosophy and Literature, Vol. 25, No. 1, April 2001, pp. 1-13.

Harkin, Michael.“Staged Encounters: Postmodern Tourism and Aboriginal People.”Ethnohistory, 50:3 (2003), pp 575-585.

12) Dec. 5: ***In Class Test 1***

End of First Term

13)Jan 9:Subjectivity and Identity: agency and anti-essentialism

Readings

Katja Lee. “Reconsidering Rap’s “I”: Eminem’s Autobiographical Postures and the Construction of Identity Authenticity.”Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 38, No. 3, 2008, pp. 351-373.

Race and Representation

14) Jan. 16: race and ethnicity, national identities, representation

***Second Essay Due

Readings

Nakamura, Lisa. “Race and Identity in Digital Media.”Mass Media and Society, 5th edition, edited byJames Curran, 2010.

SunainaMaira. “Henna and Hip Hop: The Politics of Cultural Production and the Work of Cultural Studies.” Asian American Studies 3.3 (2000) 329-369.

Gender and Sexuality

15) Jan. 23: feminism, gender, identity, Foucault

Readings

Elizabeth Keenan. “If Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville Made You a Feminist, What Kind of Feminist Are You?: Heterosexuality, Race, and Class in the Third Wave.” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, Volume 14, 2010, pp. 45-71.

16) Jan. 30: masculinity, gender and media

Readings

Beynon, John. “What is Masculinity?” Masculinities and Culture. Buckingham, Phil: Open University Press, 2002.

Producers, Consumers and Audiences

17) Feb. 6: television as text, active audiences (Hall), cultural identity

Readings

Srinivas, Lakshmi. “The Active Audience: spectatorship, social relations and the experience of cinema in India.” Media, Culture and Society. March 2002, vol. 24, no. 2, pp 155-173.

18) Feb. 13: Consumer and Popular Culture

Readings

Raymond Williams. "Advertising: the magic system"

Steven Waldman. Tyranny of Choice.New Republic (January 27, 1992) vol 206, Issue 4, pp 22-25.Available directly via the York library as an E-source.

Youth and Alternative Cultures

19) Feb. 27: youth culture, subcultures, main approaches

Readings

Brian Cogan. “Do They Owe Us a Living? Of Course They Do!” Crass, Throbbing Gristle, and Anarchy and Radicalism in Early English Punk Rock.”Journal for the Study of Radicalism.1.2 (2007) p77-90.

McRobbie, Angela. “Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique.” Screen Education, Spring 1980, no.39.

Digital Culture

20) March 6: Digital Culture

Readings

Lev Manovich."The Algorithms of Our Lives."The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 16, 2013.

Van Dijck, Jose. “Digital Photography: communication, identity, memory.” Visual Communication, Feb. 2008, vol. 7, no. 1, pp 57-76.

21) March 13: Digital Culture (continued)

Readings

Excerpts from Paul, Christian ed. A Companion to Digital Art. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.

Cubitt, Sean. “Aesthetics of the Digital,” pp. 265-280.
Stern, Nathaniel. “Interactive Art: Interventions in/to Process,” pp. 310-329

*** Essay Three Due

Digital Gaming

22) March 20: Digital Gaming

Readings

Watts, Evan. "Ruin, Gender, and Digital Games." WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, Volume 39, Numbers 3 and 4, Fall/Winter 2011, pp. 247-265.

23) March 27: Exam Review and course evaluation

24) April 3***In Class Exam 2***

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