ENGL 4090 - Theories of Popular Culture

(CA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

J. Juffer.

Why study popular culture? Although it is often equated with mass culture and perceived to be unworthy of academic study, this course argues that popular culture is an important site for the production of both pleasure and politics. We consider a range of theoretical approaches and read a spectrum of cultural critics and theorists, from those who equate the popular with the “folk” and the marginalized to those who explore the highly mediated and commercialized aspects of the popular. We look across media and its sites—television, film, the porn industry, baseball, popular music, and Starbucks coffee shops. Studies of texts will be located in economic, political, and social contexts. Also, we ask what feelings of desire, pleasure, fear, and disgust does popular culture generate?