EN 5882/EN 6882

Topics In Cultural Studies

Lesson Plan

Week 1 15 Jan

Introduction to the Course

Because I will be drawing on the role of the image in culture for many of my examples and questions I have started an image archive at the following links.

Image Archive (early photography)

Images (Lomography)

Links:

1. Lomography and Club Culture Videos

Week 2 22 Jan

This is a Study Week (no class)

Language & Culture

Ideology and Mythology

Reading (from During, ed., The Cultural Studies Reader 3^rd edition):

“Part Seven: Consumption and the Market”

You may wish to read the entire section but the text for discussion is below. We will take it up next week along with Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry”

For discussion:

Dick Hebdige, “Subculture and Style”

Week 3 29 Jan: Notes

1. As a context for our class discussion I’ll be talking about the following terms:

Language & Culture

Ideology and Mythology

2. The Culture Industry

Reading:

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility”

Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”

Week 4 05 Feb: Notes

Image, Music, Text

Presenters: Kelvin

Reading:

Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text”

Supplementary: Barthes, “The Rhetoric of the Image” (from IVLE Lecture Notes)

Week 5 12 Feb

Recess Week (13-21 Feb inc. Chinese New Year)

Week 6 26 Feb (Essay 1 Due)

Space and Cultural Studies

Presenter: Daisuke Yuasa

Week 7 05 Mar: Notes

Lacan’s Seminar

           Freud and Lacan

Presenter: Serene

Week 8 12 Mar: Notes and Images

Wild Analysis

Presenters: Nelson

Week 9 19 Mar

           Analyzing Culture

Presenters: Shanthini and He Qi

Week 10 26 Mar

           The Image 1: The Photograph

Reading: Barthes, Camera Lucida

Presenters: Stacey

Week 11 02 Apr (some notes on the Hyperreal)

The Postmodern and Cultural Studies

Presenter: Wilson

Week 12 09 Apr

Gender and Generation

Reading: “Sexuality and Gender” in During, especially Judith Butler, “Subversive Bodily Acts”

Presenters: Hasanah

Week 13 16 Apr (Essay 2 Due)

The Image 2: The Moving Image & the Digital Image

And The Future of Cultural Studies

Reading: “Globalization/Postmodernism” in During (special attention on Appadurai)

Assessment

Assessment Class Participation: 10%

Essay 1: 30%

Essay 2: 40%

Presentation: 20%

Total: 100%