The Passing of my Popular Culture module
Popular Culture - MC3577 - Cardiff University
This module focuses on some of the major themes and topics in the realms of popular culture. It introduces students to the most common examples and forms of what is taken to be popular culture, and examines the film, media, journalistic, political and academic debates associated with these examples. The module introduces students to the forms and developments of common debates, and develops students' knowledge of the specific contributions of media and cultural studies scholarship in these areas. In doing so, the module equips students with a developed awareness of popular cultural debates and the specificity of cultural studies orientations to popular culture.
Week-by-Week:
- Week 1 – (28th Sept) – Is Popular Culture Popular?
- Week 2 – (5th Oct) – Is Popular Culture Stupid?
- Week 3 – (12th Oct) – Is Popular Culture Meaningful?
- Week 4 – (19th Oct) – Is Popular Culture Chosen, or Imposed?
- Week 5 – (26th Oct) – Is Popular Culture Political?
- Week 6 – (2nd Nov) – Is Popular Culture Sexist?
- Week 7 – (9th Nov) – Is Popular Culture Racist?
- Week 8 – (16th Nov) – Is Popular Culture separate from our bodies?
- Week 9 – (23rd Nov) – Essay Preparation (Due 27th Nov, 4pm)
- Week 10 – (30th Nov) – Is Popular Culture Imaginary?
- Week 11 – (7th Dec) – Is Popular Culture Anything?
Week 1 – (28th Sept) – Is Popular Culture Popular?
The module commences with introductions, a module overview, an explanation of what is expected of you, information about forms of assessment, timetable, etc.; and then an introduction to some of the key questions that will occupy us throughout the module. To begin, this week we will pose the question of cultural value: what is to be valued and why? The answer to this question requires (and implies) an answer to the question of 'what is culture?' This is a very long-running debate. We shall look at the way some time-worn debates can still be seen to be raging in contemporary culture, by examining the question of cultural value in popular (and unpopular) culture.
Primary Reading:
- Bowman, Paul (2012). Chapter 1, 'Culture is (not) the Media'. Culture and the Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp. 4-25.
Secondary Reading:
- Raymond Williams, 'Culture and Masses', Popular Culture: A Reader (Sage, 2005), ed. R. Guins and O. Cruz.
- Storey, John (2006). Cultural theory and popular culture: an introduction. 4th ed. ed. Harlow: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Lecture, part three.
This week we will look at the various ways in which popular music has worked as an important cultural and even political force. Subcultural movements have often been organised by music; various forms of music have often been decried and denounced by both philosophers and cultural commentators of all stripes. So this week we will look at the structures of these sorts of debates, responses to and uses of popular music in order to gain insights into the stakes and significances of music and popular culture.
Primary Reading:
· Bowman, Paul (2012). Chapter 2: 'Media is (not) the Culture'. Culture and the Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp. 26-48.
Secondary Reading:
Week 3 – (12th Oct) – Is Popular Culture Meaningful?
Lecture, part one.
This week we will look at the various ways in which popular music has worked as an important cultural and even political force. Subcultural movements have often been organised by music; various forms of music have often been decried and denounced by both philosophers and cultural commentators of all stripes. So this week we will look at the structures of these sorts of debates, responses to and uses of popular music in order to gain insights into the stakes and significances of music and popular culture.
Primary Reading:
· Bowman, Paul (2012). Chapter 2: 'Media is (not) the Culture'. Culture and the Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp. 26-48.
• Theodor W. Adorno, 'On Popular Music' 1st published in: Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, New York: Institute of Social Research, 1941, IX, 17-48.
Secondary Reading:
• 'Take your partner by the hand: Dance music, gender and sexuality', Ewan Pearson and Jeremy Gilbert, Discographies: Dance, Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound (London: Routledge, 1999), pages 83-109.
· Bowman, Paul (2008). Chapter 5, 'Counter-Culture versus Counter-Culture'. Deconstructing Popular Culture. Basingstoke England; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 105-115.Week 3 – (12th Oct) – Is Popular Culture Meaningful?
Lecture, part one.
Lecture, part two.
This week we look at how values and meanings are made: How does something mean anything? How is meaning made or transformed? This week focuses on the significance of the approaches of semiotics (the 'science of signs') for the study of how meanings are produced, circulate and change. It looks specifically at the ideological and propagandist uses of signifying practices, but also differentiates between propaganda and ideology in a more cultural sense. The key figures discussed will be the works of Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes and Stuart Hall.
Primary Reading:
· Barthes, Roland (1993). Mythologies. London: Vintage.
Secondary Reading:
· Chandler, Daniel (no date). Semiotics for Beginners. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html
· Silverman, Kaja (1983). The Subject of Semiotics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Week 4 – (19th Oct) – Is Popular Culture Chosen, or Imposed?
Lecture, part one.
This week we look at how values and meanings are made: How does something mean anything? How is meaning made or transformed? This week focuses on the significance of the approaches of semiotics (the 'science of signs') for the study of how meanings are produced, circulate and change. It looks specifically at the ideological and propagandist uses of signifying practices, but also differentiates between propaganda and ideology in a more cultural sense. The key figures discussed will be the works of Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes and Stuart Hall.
Primary Reading:
· Barthes, Roland (1993). Mythologies. London: Vintage.
• Hall, Stuart (1980), 'Encoding/Decoding', Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-79, ed. Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe and Paul Willis, London: Routledge: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8646099/encoding-decoding-stuart-hall
Secondary Reading:
· Chandler, Daniel (no date). Semiotics for Beginners. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html
· Silverman, Kaja (1983). The Subject of Semiotics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Week 4 – (19th Oct) – Is Popular Culture Chosen, or Imposed?
Lecture, part one.
Lecture, part two.
One of the first approaches to the notion of subcultures was broadly derived from semiotics. The study of meaning-making systems was combined with approaches from sociology and ethnography in order to produce the notion and the study of 'subcultures'. This week we look at this ground-breaking work in cultural studies and consider its importance and limitations as well as looking at the development of approaches to the question of cultural identity that have taken place since the development of the notion of subculture.
Primary Reading:
· Hebdige, Dick (1979). Subculture, the meaning of style, New Accents. London: Methuen.
Secondary Reading:
One of the first approaches to the notion of subcultures was broadly derived from semiotics. The study of meaning-making systems was combined with approaches from sociology and ethnography in order to produce the notion and the study of 'subcultures'. This week we look at this ground-breaking work in cultural studies and consider its importance and limitations as well as looking at the development of approaches to the question of cultural identity that have taken place since the development of the notion of subculture.
Primary Reading:
· Hebdige, Dick (1979). Subculture, the meaning of style, New Accents. London: Methuen.
• Adorno and Horkheimer, 'The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception', which can be found online, at http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/adorno.htm
Secondary Reading:
• Sarah Thornton, 'The Media Development of "Subcultures" (or the Sensational Story of "Acid House")', Popular Culture: A Reader (Sage, 2005), ed. R. Guins and O. Cruz.
• Gilbert, J., and Pearson, E. (1999), "Chapter 1. The Tribal Rites of Saturday Night: Discos and Intellectuals", Discographies: Dance Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound, Routledge, London.
• Cohen, S. (2002) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mods and Rockers. Third edition. London and New York: Routledge (1972).
• Hall, S. et al. (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order. Houndsmills and London: Macmillan.
• Thompson, K. (1998) Moral Panics. London and New York: Routledge.
Lecture, part two.
This week we turn to the question of cultural politics by looking into the various forms of popular counter-culture. We look at some key coordinates of the formation of countercultural ideologies and outlooks. This is a hotly contested issue: is counter-culture ever political? Does it ever make any real difference? If so, to what? How? Are there still counter-cultures? Have there ever been? 'Counter' to what? Why? And with what consequences? We will read and discuss Heath and Potter's argument about countercultures in The Rebel Sell: How the Counter Culture Became Consumer Culture – a book which is very critical of the ideas and claims about counter-culture.
Primary Reading:
Secondary Reading:
· Bowman, Paul (2008). Chapter 5, 'Counter-Culture versus Counter-Culture'. Deconstructing Popular Culture. Basingstoke England; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 105-115.
Week 6 – (2nd Nov) – Is Popular Culture Sexist?
Lecture, part one.
This week we turn to the question of cultural politics by looking into the various forms of popular counter-culture. We look at some key coordinates of the formation of countercultural ideologies and outlooks. This is a hotly contested issue: is counter-culture ever political? Does it ever make any real difference? If so, to what? How? Are there still counter-cultures? Have there ever been? 'Counter' to what? Why? And with what consequences? We will read and discuss Heath and Potter's argument about countercultures in The Rebel Sell: How the Counter Culture Became Consumer Culture – a book which is very critical of the ideas and claims about counter-culture.
Primary Reading:
• Heath, Joseph, and Potter, Andrew (2005). 'Being Normal', The Rebel Sell: How the Counter Culture Became Consumer Culture, Capstone. Pp. 68-99.
· Bowman, Paul (2012). Chapter 3, 'Media Representation and Its Cultural Consequences'. Culture and the Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp. 49-66.Secondary Reading:
• Arditi, Benjamin, and Valentine, Jeremy (1999), Polemicization: The Contingency of the Commonplace, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
· Bowman, Paul (2008). Chapter 4, 'Street Fetishism: Popular Politics and Deconstruction'. Deconstructing Popular Culture. Basingstoke England; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 80-101.· Bowman, Paul (2008). Chapter 5, 'Counter-Culture versus Counter-Culture'. Deconstructing Popular Culture. Basingstoke England; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 105-115.
Week 6 – (2nd Nov) – Is Popular Culture Sexist?
Lecture, part one.
This week we explore the proposition that popular culture is sexist. We look at examples of gendered representations and interrogate such key concepts sexism, patriarchy, misogyny and the theoretical concept of phallocentricity. Examples will mainly be drawn from the field of music videos.
Primary Reading:
· Bowman, Paul (2012). Chapter 4, 'Filming Culture'. Culture and the Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp. 67-85.
• Laura Mulvey, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' (1975), Originally Published in Screen 16.3 Autumn 1975 pp. 6-18. http://www.scribd.com/doc/7758866/laura-mulvey-visual-pleasure-and-narrative-cinema
Secondary Reading:
• Brunsdon, C., (2000), 'Post-Feminism and Shopping Films', in The Film Studies Reader, ed. Hollows, Hutchings & Jankovich (London: Arnold, 2000), pp. 289-299.
• Power, Nina (2008), One Dimensional Woman, Zero Books: London.
• Gayle Rubin, 'The Traffic in Women': http://www.scribd.com/doc/17220155/The-Traffic-in-Women
• Butler, J., Gender Trouble: http://www.scribd.com/doc/10263585/Judith-Butler-Gender-Trouble-Subjects-of-Sex-Gender-Desire
• Popular Culture: A Reader (Sage, 2005), ed. R. Guins and O. Cruz. Chapters 4, 20, 30, 33, 34.
• Introducing Lacan: http://www.scribd.com/doc/11477697/Introducing-Lacan
Lecture, part two.
This week we explore popular representation in terms of its racial biases. We examine the ways that ethnicity functions as a marker of difference in different ways, depending on time and place, and consider the cultural, ethical and political implications of this.
Primary Reading:
Secondary Reading:
Week 8 – (16th Nov) – Is Popular Culture separate from our bodies?
Lecture, part one.
This week we explore popular representation in terms of its racial biases. We examine the ways that ethnicity functions as a marker of difference in different ways, depending on time and place, and consider the cultural, ethical and political implications of this.
Primary Reading:
• Hall, Stuart (1999), 'The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power', Formations of Modernity, eds. Stuart Hall and Bram Gieben. Cambridge: Polity.
· Bowman, Paul (2012). Chapter 4, 'Filming Culture'. Culture and the Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp. 67-85.Secondary Reading:
• Said, E. W. (1979), Orientalism: http://www.scribd.com/doc/17226810/Said-Edward-Orientalism
• Chow, Rey (2002), 'Brushes with The Other As Face: The Inevitability of Stereotypes in Cross Ethnic Representation', The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Columbia University Press: New York.
• Stuart Hall, 'Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity': http://www.scribd.com/doc/19747301/stuart-hall-gramscis-relevance-for-the-study-of-race-and-ethnicity
• Rattansi, Ali (2011), Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Week 8 – (16th Nov) – Is Popular Culture separate from our bodies?
Lecture, part one.
Lecture, part two.
Are our bodies inside or outside of culture? On the one hand, they are what seems most natural, but on the other hand, they are constantly worked upon and worked over by cultural processes – rules, habits, law, diet, education, training, discipline, design, attire, desire, fantasy, values, aspirations, procedures, judgements, and so on. This week we examine some of the ways that culture works on the body, by looking at the work of Michel Foucault and Foucault-inspired scholarship. We connect such historical work with ongoing processes in popular culture and our everyday lives.
Primary Reading:
· Foucault, Michel (1977). 'Panopticism'. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 1st American ed. New York: Pantheon Books.
Secondary Reading:
· Foucault, Michel (1978). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. London: Penguin.
Week 9 – (23rd Nov) – Essay Preparation
There is no lecture this week. Seminars for essay preparation only.
Week 10 – (30th Nov) – Is Popular Culture Imaginary?
Lecture, part one.
Are our bodies inside or outside of culture? On the one hand, they are what seems most natural, but on the other hand, they are constantly worked upon and worked over by cultural processes – rules, habits, law, diet, education, training, discipline, design, attire, desire, fantasy, values, aspirations, procedures, judgements, and so on. This week we examine some of the ways that culture works on the body, by looking at the work of Michel Foucault and Foucault-inspired scholarship. We connect such historical work with ongoing processes in popular culture and our everyday lives.
Primary Reading:
· Foucault, Michel (1977). 'Panopticism'. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 1st American ed. New York: Pantheon Books.
Secondary Reading:
· Foucault, Michel (1978). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. London: Penguin.
• Grosz, Elizabeth (1994), 'The Body as Inscriptive Surface', Volatile Bodies: Towards a Corporeal Feminism, Indiana University Press.
Week 9 – (23rd Nov) – Essay Preparation
There is no lecture this week. Seminars for essay preparation only.
Week 10 – (30th Nov) – Is Popular Culture Imaginary?
Lecture, part one.
Lecture, part two.
Is popular culture tied to our imaginations? What might this mean, and how might it happen? What ramifications does it have? This week we will explore the status of the imagination in relation to culture and popular culture.
Primary Reading:
Secondary Reading:
· Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism - Revised Edition. London: Verso.
Week 11 – (8th Dec) – Is Popular Culture Anything?
Some problems recording the lecture this week. The lecture fragments are all here.
Is popular culture tied to our imaginations? What might this mean, and how might it happen? What ramifications does it have? This week we will explore the status of the imagination in relation to culture and popular culture.
Primary Reading:
• Said, Edward W. (2005), 'Invention, Memory, and Place', in Pepi Leistyna, ed., Cultural Studies: From Theory to Action, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 256-269.
Secondary Reading:
· Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism - Revised Edition. London: Verso.
Week 11 – (8th Dec) – Is Popular Culture Anything?
Some problems recording the lecture this week. The lecture fragments are all here.
Is popular culture a thing? Is it something particular? Can it be just anything? Is it nothing? Does it have any necessary characteristics? What determines them, and why? This week we approach these questions in terms of everything that has gone before in the module but filtered through the lens provided by Raymond Williams, who, in a classic text of cultural studies, argues that culture can be approached according to a few key terms and questions.
Primary Reading:
· Williams, R. (1977), 'Dominant, Residual and Emergent', Marxism and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Secondary Reading:
· Bowman, Paul (2007), Post-Marxism Versus Cultural Studies: Theory, Politics and Intervention, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp.10-25.
So, that's that, then. Eight years. Done.
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