Fall 2001 T/Th 12:35-1:50 pm
San Francisco State University 3 Units
Instructor: Nerissa
S. Balce
Office: HUM 427
Voicemail: (415)
338-3155
Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00-3:00 pm and by
appointment
E-mail: balce2001@hotmail.com
The Course:
How does popular culture shape our common sense
notions regarding women, men, sexuality, and citizenship? Why are forms of
popular culture loved, feared, revered and reviled? What are the images that we
see in popular culture and how do we read them? Who creates and disseminates
these images? Who benefits from them? These questions will serve as the basis
for our conversations regarding the forms and function of popular culture. A
central idea we will explore in our class is the notion that knowledge is
political. We will begin with the debatable assumption that images are not
neutral: our ideas about men and women, ethnic groups, sexualities, and civil
society are formed by cultural texts. For our class, the cultural texts to be
discussed are:
·
Hollywood
movies
·
television
·
advertising
and fashion magazines
·
disco
and club cultures
·
icons
By examining an image and the meanings behind
images, we will view these forms of popular culture as political texts that
influence and/or inform our opinions and choices.
In our class, we will view popular culture as a
"pedagogical tool" by examining how popular culture socializes and
disciplines us even as it entertains us. As the feminist critic bell hooks
reminds us, movies are more than images: "Movies not only provide a
narrative for specific discourses of race, sex and class, they provide a shared
experience, a common starting point from which diverse audiences can dialogue
about these charged issues." Our class will be a space for critical
engagement and dialogue regarding how forms of popular culture work and how we
can become critical consumers of culture.
Texts: Course Reader is available at Copy Edge, 1508 Ocean
at Miramar (415) 587-5345.
Requirements:
1. Class
Participation
- Bring the assigned readings to each class sessions and be ready to discuss
the following: key arguments; theoretical concept or term presented by the
author; your critique. Some of the readings are demanding and require patience,
attentiveness and repeated reading (20%)
2. Attendance - You are allowed three absences. An excess of three absences lowers
your grade by one letter grade. (20%)
3. Mid-term quiz - The quiz will cover the critical concepts from the assigned
readings from weeks 1 to 7. The format of the quiz will be a definition of
terms and a brief analysis of visual texts. (10%)
4. In-class
Group Presentation (10%)
5. Popular
Culture Interview and Analysis Paper (20%)
6. Final Exam (20%)
Students will be required to give an in-class presentation of approximately 15-20 minutes on one of the assigned readings. Besides presenting the key points of the said reading, students are expected to use the article to analyze a popular cultural form. Choices include but are not limited to: music videos, science fiction novels, comic books, reality tv, newspaper articles, cop dramas, tabloids, contemporary song lyrics, visual and print advertising, talk shows, ethnic variety shows and pop culture icons.
For
this paper, I would like you to interview an older member of your family (or a
friend of the family). Find out her or his favorite song, movie, dance, band,
television show or celebrity from the period 1965 to 2000. Discover why this
text or cultural form meant so much to her or him in the context of personal
life. Then research the creation of that popular artifact, who created it, how
popular it was, why it gained popularity. In this context, what do you think is
the meaning--or multiple meanings--of this artifact? Place your interview in
this context. How does your relative's experience illuminate the meaning of
this popular artifact, and how does the cultural/historical context illuminate
the artifact's meaning for your relative? Our readings and class discussions
will prepare you to do this assignment. Pay close attention to the methods of
analysis of the authors you read.
Write
up your findings in an essay of not more than eight typed pages due Nov. 20,
Thursday at the beginning of class. Please come to me with any questions. The
grade for this essay will be calculated by adding together the percentage
points earned from the following: paper proposal (5%), bibliography and
detailed outline (5%), final draft (10%). (20%)
COURSE
SCHEDULE AND READINGS
Unit 1: CRITICAL TERMS AND FILM
Week 1 Aug
30 Th Reading Gender and Popular
Culture
Text for discussion: scenes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee,
2000)
Week 2 Sept 4 T Representation, Icon and Index
Texts: Stuart Hall, “Representation, meaning and
language;” bell hooks, “Mock Feminism, Waiting
to Exhale;” scenes from Waiting to
Exhale (Forest Whitaker, 1995)
Sept
6 Th Sign, Signifier, Signified
Texts: Stuart Hall, “Saussure’s legacy;” Gina
Marchetti, “White Knights in Hong Kong: Love
is a Many-Splendored Thing and The
World of Suzie Wong;” screening of Picturing Oriental Girls: A (Re)educational
Videotape (Valerie Soe, 1992)
Week 3 Sept 11 T Denotation, Connotation, Myth
Texts: Stuart Hall, “From language to culture:
linguistics to semiotics;” Ana M. López, “Are All Latins from Manhattan?
Hollywood, Ethnography, and Cultural Colonialism;” scenes from Carmen Miranda:
Bananas is My Business” (Helena Solberg, 1996)
Sept
13 Th Discourse, Hegemony and Regime of truth
Texts: Stuart Hall, “Discourse, power and the
subject;” Vine Deloria, Jr. “Indians Today, The Real and Unreal;” scenes from Smoke Signals (Chris Eyre, 1998)
Unit 2: CRITIQUING TELEVISION
Week 4 Sept
18 T Eurocentrism and the
Quincentennial
Robert Stam, “Eurocentrism, Polycentrism, and
Multicultural Pedagogy: Film and the Quincentennial;” scenes from Columbus and the Age of Discovery
Sept
20 Th Reading Rodney King
Kimberlé Crenshaw and Gary Peller, “Reel Time/Real
Justice;” Sumi K. Cho, “Korean Americans vs. African Americans: Conflict and
Construction;” scenes from Sa-I-Gu
Week 5 Sept 25 T Gaze and the O.J Simpson Case
Text: Ann duCille: “The Unbearable Darkness of Being:
‘Fresh’ Thoughts on Race, Sex and the Simpsons;” Crystal H. Weston, “Orenthal
James Simpson and Gender, Class, and Race: In That Order”
Sept
27 Th News shows and tabloid television
John Fiske, “Popularity and the Politics of
Information;” Nancy Franklin, “Fright Nights: Prime time becomes slime time”
Week 6 Oct 2 T Queer Sci-Fi
Henry Jenkins, “Out of the Closet and into the
Universe”: Queers and Star Trek”
Oct
4 Th Food and Our Bodies
Susan Bordo, “Hunger as Ideology”
Unit 3: CRITIQUING THE BODY, FASHION AND SHOPPING
Week 7 Oct 9 T Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto”;
scenes from Blade Runner (Ridley
Scott, 1982);
Guest lecturer: Mia Ople Ong,
PhD. Candidate, UC Berkeley (Feminist studies of science scholar)
Oct
11 Th Blackness and Hair Style
Kobena Mercer, “Black
Hair/Style Politics”
Guest lecturer: Caroline A.
Streeter, PhD. (Postdoctoral fellow, Center for Cultural Studies at UC Santa
Cruz)
Week 8 Oct 16 T Race and fashion
Dorinne Kondo, “Orientalizing: Fashioning ‘Japan’”
Oct
18 Th Reading Advertising and Heteronormativity
Raymond Williams, “Advertising: The Magic System”;
Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, “Sex in Public”
Week 9 Oct
23 T The Politics of Shopping
Meaghan Morris, “Things to do with Shopping Centres”
Oct
25 Th The Politics of “Oriental” Groceries
Rick Bonus, “Marking and Marketing Identities in
Filipino ‘Oriental’ Stores
Unit 4: CRTIQUING 70s DISCO AND 90s CLUB CULTURES
Week 10 Oct
30 T Richard Dyer, “In Defense
of Disco;” scenes from Summer of Sam
(Spike Lee, 1999)
Nov
1 Th Walter Hughes, “In the Empire of the Beat: Discipline and
Disco”
Week 11 Nov 6 T Sarah Thornton, “The Distinctions of
Cultures without Distinction”
Nov 8 Th Sunaina Maira, “Henna and
Hip Hop: The Politics of Cultural Production and the Work of Cultural Studies”
Unit 5: CRITIQUING ICONS
Week 12 Nov 13 T Marjorie Garber, “The Transvestite
Continuum: Liberace-Valentino-Elvis;”
Nov 15 Th Martin Manalansan, “Speaking
of AIDS: Language and the Filipino Gay Experience in America”
Week 13 Nov 20 Vivian Ng, “Race Matters”; listening to
songs from Miss Saigon (1990)
Nov
22 Th THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
Week 14 Nov 27 T Ramona Liera-Schwichtenberg,
“Crossing Over: Selena’s Tejano Music and the Discourse of the Borderlands;”
scenes from Selena (Gregory Nava,
1997)
Nov 29 Th Rachael Miyung Joo,
“(Trans)national Pastimes and Korean American Subjectivities: Reading Chan Ho
Park”
PARADIGMS FOR READING POPULAR CULTURE
Week 15 Dec 4 T Screening of Pink Palace (Jessica Hagedorn and John Woo, 2000) and Sex, Love and Kung-Fu (Kip Fulbeck,
2000); N. Balce’s reading of Pink Palace
and Sex, Love and Kung-Fu
Student presentations
Dec 6 Th Houston Baker, Jr.,
“Handling ‘Crisis’: Great Books, Rap Music and the End of Western Homogeneity
(Reflections on the Humanities in America”
Student presentations
Week 16 Dec 11 T Umberto Eco, “Travels in
Hyperreality”
Student presentations
Dec 13 Th Eva Vieth, “The Future is
Present: American Cultural Studies on the Net;” Student presentations;
My Parting Shots