Week One (Jan 18) - Introductions

    • What is Cultural Studies and what is this course about?
    • Make sure your Columbia school email address is set up correctly!

        Week Two (Jan 25) - Culture as Ritual, Artifact & Idea


        Assignments for today
        • Carol Duncan, "The Art Museum as Ritual," Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 7-20.
        • Theory Toolbox, Chapter 5 (check the menu on the right for a PDF copy of the book)
        • Also read an abridged version of Yi-Fu Tuan, "The Significance of the Artifact," Geographical Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (1980).
        KEY TERMS: Canon, High Culture, Low Culture, Folk Culture, Ritual
        CULTURAL ARTIFACTS: The Art Museum

        For further reading and research

        Week Three (Feb 1) - Analyzing Institutions: The Corporation


        Readings for today:
        • Robert McChesney, “The Market Über Alles” In The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004), pp. 175-209.
        • Stacy Mitchell, "Preface" to Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses (Beacon Press, 2007).
        • In class screening: The Corporation
        • FIELDWORK PAPER DUE TODAY
        Reading questions & guides:
        KEY TERMS: Political Economy, Corporation, Monopoly, Oligopoly, Consolidation, Free Market
        CULTURAL ARTIFACTS: Media corporations, 'Big-Box' retailers


        For further reading & research:

        Week Four (Feb 8) - Analyzing Cultural Texts


        Assignments for today
        Reading questions & guides
        KEY TERMS: Ideology, Hegemony, Discourse
        CULTURAL ARTIFACTS: Disney films

        For further reading and research

        Week Five (Feb 15) - Semiotics and Signifying Practices



        Assignments for today
        Reading Questions & Guides
        KEY TERMS: Semiotics, Sign, Signifier, Signified, Nationalism, Imagined Community
        CULTURAL ARTIFACTS: Flags, Billboards

        For further reading and research

        Week Six (Feb 22) - Framing 'Nature'


        Assignments for today
        KEY TERMS: Consumption, Commodification, Advertising, Branding
        CULTURAL ARTIFACTS: Brands, Rainforest Cafe, The Nature Company/Discovery Store

        For further reading and research

        Week Seven (Feb 29) - Subjectivity & Bodies


        Assignments for today
        Reading questions & guides
        KEY TERMS: Subjectivity, the ‘Gaze’, Interpellation, Biopower
        For further reading and research
        Readings for today:
        • Theory Toolbox, "Life"
        For further reading and research:

        Week Eight (March 7) - Gender Troubles


        Readings for today
        KEY TERMS: Feminism, Gender, Masculinity, Queer, Performativity

        Reading questions & guides
        For further reading and research

        Week Nine (March 14) - Constructing Race & Ethnicity, Part I



        Readings for today:
        KEY TERMS: Difference, Race, Ethnicity, Essentialism

        Reading questions & guides:
        For further reading and research:

        Week Ten (March 21) - Constructing Race & Ethnicity, Part II



        For today:
        KEY TERMS: Post-colonial, Orientalism, Third World

        For further reading and research:

        Week Twelve (April 4) - NO CLASS: INJURY TIME-OUT


        No class today

        Week Thirteen (April 11) - Post/Modernity & Globalization


        For today:
        • Thomas Misa, excerpt on modernity & technology (with highlighted passages).
        • Theory Toolbox, Chapter 9 (I will review the material on Post-Colonialism and Orientalism from Week 9 when we discuss the content in the Theory Toolbox).
        • Allen McDuffee, "Brewing Globalization with a local flavor," Pop Politics, Oct 2007.  Note: The archives on Pop Politics were recently password protected, so the link I'm providing is a re-post (same content...just not as pretty to look at).
        • REMINDER: Be sure to be thinking about or working on your CASE STUDY PAPER.  It's due by the last day of class.
        Reading Questions & Guides:
        KEY TERMS: Modernity, Modernism, Postmodernity, Postmodernism, Social Formation, Globalization, Cultural Imperialism, Post-Colonialism.

        For further reading & research:

        Week Fourteen (April 18) - The Politics of Space and Place, Part I


        For today's class
        KEY TERMS: Space, Place, Mobility, Landscape
        CULTURAL ARTIFACTS: Highways, Skateboards, Maps, Automobiles

        For further reading & research:

        Week Fifteen (April 25th) - Resistance, Agency & Activism


        For today:
        • Stephen Duncombe, "Introduction" to The Cultural Resistance Reader (New York: Verso, 2002)
        • Theory Toolbox, Chapter 11 ('Agency') 
        • Zack Furness, "Alternative Media: The Art of Rebellion," in  Eds. Donaldo Macedo and Shirley Steinberg, Media Literacy: A Reader (Peter Lang Publishing: New York, 2007), pp. 187-196
        • REMINDER: Be sure to be working on your CASE STUDY PAPER (due by the last day of class). 
        KEY TERMS: Agency, Cultural Resistance, Counterhegemonic, Subculture, Alternative Media, Culture Jamming

        Reading questions & guides:
        For further reading and research:

        Week Sixteen - Last Day! (May 2nd)