Poslední úprava: PhDr. Jan Křeček, Ph.D. (10.08.2016)
How many movies have you seen in the last 12 months? How many commercials have you seen on TV? How many songs have you heard on the radio, or in a club? How many magazines have you read? Why? Because these sorts of things form the world we live in, make our environment. We humans enjoy making meanings and sharing them with others. And these meanings have a lot of power to influence us, sometimes in ways we don?t even notice. What is the best way to understand popular culture and the media? This course will introduce you to several thinkers - some philosophers, some psychologists (at least one), some anthropologists, and others - who have thought long and hard about the media and popular culture. They have different answers about what is culture and media, how do they make meaning, what is the best ways to interpret their messages? And what do these theories tell us about what it means to be human, what is really real? If these kinds of questions interest you, and you would like know more about the media and popular culture and what it all means, then this course is for you. In this course, we shall focus upon theories of popular culture and media that characterize the postmodern era (late 1950s to the present).
Literatura - angličtina
Poslední úprava: PhDr. Jan Křeček, Ph.D. (10.08.2016)
If it looks like too much to sort through, allow me to suggest a few good places to start: Storey's Introductory Guide would be a good place to start for popular culture theory, though it may be out of print. He covers a lot of the same ground in his later Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture, though he organizes it around different genres of popular culture instead of around different theoretical schools. Burton?s book is a good primer on media studies. And the introductory sections of each of these big readers contain good overviews of the field of popular culture and media theory. Another good place to start would be at www.popcultures.com, especially the "theorists and critics" link. It?s not complete, but it is a very good resource for popular culture theory, with lots of links to more specific sites.
Alexander, Jeffery C. and Steven Seidman. Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Burton, Graeme. More than Meets the Eye: An Introduction to Media Studies. Cashmore, Ellis and Chris Rojek, eds. Dictionary of Cultural Theorists. London: Arnold, 1999. Dirks, Nicholas B., Geoff Eley and Sherry B. Ortner, eds. Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Durham, Meenakshi Gigi and Douglas M. Keller, eds. Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2001. During, Simon, ed. The Cultural Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 1993. Gray, Ann and Jim McGuigan, eds. Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader. 2d ed. London: Arnold, 1997. Jenks, Chris. Culture: Key Ideas. London: Routledge, 1993. Kearney, Richard, and Mara Rainwater, eds. The Continental Philosophy Reader. London: Routledge, 1996. MacKay, Hugh and Tim O?Sullivan, eds. The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation. London: Sage, 1999. Marris, Paul and Sue Thornham, eds. Media Studies: A Reader. 2d ed. Washington Square, NY: New York University Press, 2000. Mukerji, Chandra, and Michael Schudson, eds. Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991. Romanowski, William D. Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996. Storey, John. An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1993. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader. Hertfordshire, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994. What is Cultural Studies: A Reader. London: Arnold, 1996. Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: Theories and Methods. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996. Surber, Jere Paul. Culture and Critique: An Introduction to the Critical Discourses of Cultural Studies. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998.
Požadavky ke zkoušce - angličtina
Poslední úprava: PhDr. Jan Křeček, Ph.D. (10.08.2016)
Attendance This course depends upon class discussion. Therefore, I expect my students to be in class. Absences will adversely affect your grade. Attendance is worth 10% of your grade.
Homework Questionnaires For each lecture topic, I will give you a reading and a homework questionnaire. These need to be done before we get to that lecture topic so that you will be prepared for class discussion. These will be worth 10% of your grade, but I will grade them only on completion, not correctness. In other words, I won?t give you a bad grade for wrong answers. I will give you a bad grade if you don?t do the questions.
Paper I will require one short paper in which you will choose two theorists from different schools of thought and compare and contrast them (or some part of their theories). You will need to: (1) describe the theories; (2) critically compare them (tell me what you like and don?t like, and why); and (3) apply the theory you like best to a specific example drawn from Czech culture (or you?re native culture, if you are not Czech). It should be about 5-7 pages, double-spaced, typed. If you use outside sources (even the readings from class), I will expect you to footnote each quote. Plagiarism will not be tolerated (see plagiarism sheet). If you complete the paper early (a week before the exam is scheduled), I would be happy to read it, make comments, and let you improve it before you had it back to be graded. The paper will be worth 40% of your final grade. Please do NOT do your paper on Saussure, as he is not a cultural theorist.
Final Exam There will be a written final exam that will cover the whole semester. You will be asked to identify key terms and also write two or three short essays (perhaps applying a certain theory to a piece of popular culture). The final will be worth 40% of your final grade.
Extra-Credit For those of you who would like to do something for extra-credit, you may do a 2-3 page paper where you lay out your own answers to key questions like, "What is media and popular culture?" "Who are humans as culture-makers and media-consumers?" "How should we best interpret popular culture and media?" In other words, I want you to give a brief synopsis of your own theory of popular culture and media.
Sylabus - angličtina
Poslední úprava: PhDr. Jan Křeček, Ph.D. (10.08.2016)
CLASS/TOPIC/READING 1/Introduction 2/Structuralism I: The System is the Meaning/Ferdinand De Saussure: "Signs and Language."Will Wright: "The Structure of Myth." 3/Structuralism II: The Mythological System/Roland Barthes: "Myth Today," and "The World of Wrestling." 4/Poststructuralism I: The System Gets Slippery/Jacques Derrida: "Differánce." Louis Althusser: "From Capital to Marx's Philosophy." (Optional) Derrida: "Structure, Sign, and Play." 5/Poststructuralism II: The Poststructuralism of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault: Lacan: "The Mirror Phase," Foucault: "Method." Chris Weedon: "Feminism and the Principles of Poststructuralism." 6/A Theological Appropriation of Ricoeur: Popular Culture as Alternative Religion/Turnau: "Popular Cultural 'Worlds' as Alternative Religions," and "Jack Be Evil, Jack Be Quick: Reflections on the Necessary Evils of '24.'" 7/Final exam/Date to be determined (May 18th or June 1st?).
