Intro: American Studies (Popular Culture)

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mer Syllabus

Pop Cul/Modern America  Fall 2013

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Syllabus lla u     Fall 2013 T Th 11:00-12:20 Instructor: Kosanov E-Mail: acneff@wm. [email protected]. Office: 8B College A College Apts. Office Hours: T Th (appts.)

AMST201 American Popular Culture  

 

Overview Since the origins of the American nation, and increasingly since the Civil War, Americans have created, embraced and used different forms and practices of popular culture to understand their world, chart their visions for society, and make claims for themselves as  residents  residents in, citizens of, or nations in conversation with the Americas. In addition, American popular culture has become synonymous with American life, both at home and abroad. abroad. By examining the ways in which Americans have made, re-made, adapted, used and fought over popular culture, this course introduces us to the complex history of being American, and coincidentally, offers an introduction to methods, materials and concerns in American Studies. This course traces the relationships of American peoples and their popular culture since 1865. The course is interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, touching upon ideas, art, commerce and beliefs, made and practiced across the broad broad social spectrum. Focusing on the soci so cial al origins of cultural expressions, we examine popular culture in its settings, paying specific attention to the elements of place, race, class and and commerce in that that history. In so doing we will explore significant questions posed by Americans of all backgrounds. What does it mean to be American? Do people in the United States share a meaningful common sense of their American identity? Is such a shared shared sense possible or desirable? Do differences differences in culture strengthen the bonds of society? Can popular culture play a significant role in defining

Materials Course materials for this multimedia course can be found by class date in this syllabus. Most materials are available as articles through our Blackboard site, or e-books through Swem Library Many online media and readings wil be included, especailly for Thursday classes. Treat these with the level of engagement you would more traditional texts. I recommend printing these materials and marking them up, and to engage engage them specifically in class discussion. If you keep these files on your computer, be sure to make accessible notes for yourself in order to cite them for class

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or redefining the common beliefs and ideas about Americanness? At the heart of this course course then is an inquiry inquiry into the ways in which people in the Americas have defined themselves, one another and their nation.

Goals In this course, we work toward engaging a series of  methodologies in becoming critical scholars on pressing topics in  American Studies, while sharpening our skills as critical thinkers and writers.

discussion.

Milestones Unit One Think critically about how "Who You Are--Identity, Subjectivity, Ethnicity, and Representation" shape and are shaped by movements in American Popular  Culture.

By the end of the term, students should • Be able to analyze an example of American popular culture in a variety of critical approaches and contexts • Understand the workings of cultural forms, industries and movements in social and historical context • Hone their critical literacy through examination and discussion of specific figures, genres or works.

Unit Two  Articulate how space--"sense of  place," location, community, and geography --shapes and is shaped by movements in  American popular culture. Unit Three

We will gauge our progress toward these goals by checking in with course keywords (listed for each week) andfinal through a series of discursive writing assignments leading to our research project.

Requirements You will be graded on a series of four written assignments, a final exam, the leading of a discussion group meeting, and course participation. Complete and critically engage all required reading and media Complete all assignments on time and with intellectual and academic integrity Participate fully in the classroom community Communicate your needs and issues with your classmates and teachers responsibly. Turn off all internet and social media when in the classroom (very important) Grow intellectually, as an emerging authority on the world of  culture, and as a critical thinker and writer  As citizens of the William and Mary academic community, please keep in mind that you are bound by our honor code

Evaluation Grading Rubric for written work:

Use the notion of time--in processes of history,  geneaology, change and emergence--to think about how popular cultures are formed, move, and change with the world around them.

 A t t e n d a n ce , Pa r t ic  At i cip a t io n , Delays  Attendance is required at all lectures and discussion sections; more than two unexcused absences will result in a full final grade letter grade deduction  While all students prefer different modes of engagement, participation in classroom discussion is a must; communicate with me if you have issues Late work will, unless excused by a documented medical emergency, be docked a full letter grade per day  As a rule, communicate responsibly and mindfully about any issues ahead of time DISABILITIES AND NEEDS

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NeedsWork/Improving/Good/Excellent

Creativity  ______________________________   ________________ ______________ 

 Any student with a disability or specific need should see me as soon as possible. Every effort will be made to accommodate you.

Critical Thinking  ______________________________   ______________________________  Keywords/Ideas  _______________________________   _______________________________  Course Readings  _______________________________   ________________ _______________  Increasing Understanding of  Pop____________________________  Poetry (eloquence)  _______________________________   _______________________________  Flow (thoughtful outline)  ________________________________   ________________ ________________  Mechanics  ________________________________   ________________ ________________ 

It is essential that you adhere to the scheduled due dates. Mark them in your personal calendar. Establish a plan for reading, study, discussion, and writing that enables you to meet the deadlines.   Course Schedule: American Popular Culture  

Lecture Issues/Keywords/Themes

Thursday Materials

8/29-

Course/Personal Introductions, Syllabus

Fostering Class Discussion

8/30 KEYWORDS: American Studies, “the popular,” culture,  Cultural Studies, citizenship, nation, practices   9/29/6

Methodologies and Materials in American Studies: One contemporary discourse illustrated (Hip-Hop)

Read/c Read /con onsi side derr all all of of the these se to toda day, y, an and d rev revis isit it Mo Mon n readings:

Read/Watch/Consider for today:

1. The commercial trailers for Jay Z's MCHG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY

1. Lawrence Levine, from “Highbrow-Lowbrow”: “Shakespeare in America” 2. Stuart Hall, “Notes on deconstructing the Popular” 3. George Lipsitz, “Diasporic Noise: History, Hip-Hop and the Postcolonial Politics of Sound.”

And:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujZro-a And: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujZro-a And "Picasso Baby: Baby: A Performance Art Film":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMG2oNqB 2. The National performing "Sorrow" for 6 hours

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4. Warhol documentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elKqiiqQfEk

5. P.T. Barnum, “The Art of Money Getting”

3. NYT NYT:: "Ja "Jay-Z y-Z is Rhy Rhymin ming g Pic Picass asso o and Ro Rothk thk

4. Warren Susman, from "Culture as History," pp 101-103, ch. 7 "Culture and Civilization: The 1920s," and ch. 9 "The Culture of the Thirties"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/0 s.com/2013/07/14/fashio 7/14/fashion/jayn/jayhttp://www.nytime picasso-and-rothko.html?pagewanted=all

 NOTE: PDFs of articles are located in the appropriate week's folder on Blackboard under the "Content" menu to the left of the course homepage.

 4. Ar Artic ticle le ab abou outt The The Na Natio tiona nall per perfo form rmin ing g at at Mo Mo  New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/ national-performance-art-sorrow-ps1.html

KEYWORDS: the popular, highbrow/lowbrow, highbrow/lowbrow, diaspora, the market, postcoloniality, politics, discourse, pop art, construction/deconstruction, construction/deconstr uction, aesthetics, interdisciplinarity, cultural criticism Unit One: Who You Are--Identity, Subjectivity, Ethnicity, Representation 9/99/13

Declaring, Slipping, Reconfiguring Identities

Read/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings

Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today: 1. David Roediger. from from Working Toward Toward Whiteness, ch. 1 “New Immigrants, Race and “Ethnicity,” pp. 10-34 2. Charlie McGovern, McGovern, from Sold American, the “introduction” 3. Tricia Rose, from Black Noise : “Prophets “Prophets of Rage: Rap Music and the Politics of Black Cultural Expression,” “Bad Sistahs: Black Women Rappers and Sexual Politics in rap Music” 4. Barbara Tomlinson, Tomlinson, George George Lipsitz “American Studies as Accompaniment” American Quarterly, Volume 65, Number 1, March 2013, pp. 1-30

1. be bell ll ho hook oks: s: Cu Cult ltur ural al Cr Crit itic icis ism m an and d Tr Tran ansf sfor orm m enti en tire re 6-p 6-par artt seri series es ava availa ilabl blee on yo yout utub ubee (60 (60 min min starting with part 1:

Part 1: On Cultural Criticism Part 2: Motivated Representations Part 3: Enlightened Witness Part 4: Dealing with O.J. Part 5: Madonna: From Feminism to Patri Part 6: Spike Lee: Hollywood’s Fall-Guy Part 8: Rap Music

KEYWOR KEYW ORDS DS:: bina binary ry,, iden identi tity ty,, race race/e /eth thni nici city ty,, white whitene ness ss,, blac blackn knes ess, s, bro brown wnne ness ss,, dias diaspo pora ra,, powe power/ r/em empo powe werm rmen ent/d t/dis isem emp p Immigrants, “inbetweeness” 9/169/20

Camp, Vaudeville, comedy and the American “other”

Read/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings

Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today:

1. Watch Louis CK in class 1. Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp” 2. John Waters interview with Gary Indiana Indiana from Interview  Magazine:  Magazine: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/johnwaters/#_ 

2. http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/dave-cha does-it-hurt-him.html  

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3. Barbara Babcock, from from “The Reversible World: Symbolic Inversion in Art and Society” 4. Susan Glenn, from from Female Spectacle, ch. 2, "Mirth and Girth" 5. Omi & Winant, from from Racial Formation in the US, Introduction 6. Robert M. Lewis, from from From Travelling Travelling Show to Vaudeville, pp. 340-349. KEYWORDS: camp, vaudeville, signifying, social structure, hierarchy, symbolic inversion, resistance, class, “other” Short Keyword Essay Due Tuesday 9/17 (Assignment 1) 9/239/27

Suffragettes, Blues Women and Riot Girls

Read/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings

Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today:

 Zulu Queen Lisa Lee visit materials: 1. Angela Davis, Selections from Blues Women and Black Feminism

1. Zulu Nation Throwdown lyrics

2. OPTIONAL: Shelley Stamp, from Movie Struck  Girls ch. Girls  ch. 4, “Civic Housekeeping: Women’s Suffrage, Female Viewers, and the Body Politic”

2. Song: Zulu Nation Throwdown

3. SKIM: Howard Zinn,“People’s History: Voices”, Primary sources from suffragettes

4. Wild Style: Lisa Lee

3. Beat Street: Us Girls

5. The Real Queens of Hip Hop 4. bell hooks, from Ain’t I a Woman?, ch. 4 "Racism and Feminism" 5. Glenn, from Female Spectacle, ch. “Nationally  Advertised Legs” KEYWORDS: labor, marketing, self-definition, subculture, intervention, first/second/third wave feminism, popular me representation, hidden practitioners, cultural politics 9/3010/4

Minstrelsy

Read/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings

Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today:

1. Eric Lott, from Love Love and Theft, Theft, ch. 1 "Blackface and Blackness"

1. Watch Spike Lee’s. Bamboozled . Availab here :  : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh  

2. Louis Chude-Sokei, from The Last ‘Darky’: Bert  Williams . . . ch. 1, “Black Minstrel, Black Modernism” 3. Adam Green, from Selling the Race, ch. 4, “Selling the Race” 4. Robert Cantwell, from When We Were Good, https://blackboard.wm.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/blankPage?cmd=view&content_id=_964833_1&course_id=_38636_1

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chapters 1 and 3 KEYWORDS: binary, mimesis, performance studies, appropriation, spectacle, stereotype. modernism Unit Two: Where You’re From--Geography 10/710/11

Case Study: Detroit Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today:

1. Thomas Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis chs. 1 & 2, "Arsenal of Democracy" & "Detroit's Time Bomb: Race and Housing in the 1940s" 2. Suzanne E. Smith, from Dancing in the Streets ch. 6, "What's Going On?": Motown and New N ew Detroit" 3. Simon Reynolds, from Energy Flash, ch. 8 "The Future Sound of Detroit" 4. George Lipsitz, "Possessive Investment in Whiteness"

Thursday, October 10th: African and global pers American Pop culture (readings includ Dr. Neff's Global South”)

We will will meet meet in the Bote Botetou tourt rt Theat Theater er in Swe Swe Read/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings 1. Dr. Neff's piece on Transatlantic Hip-hop 2. (Optional) This piece on Dave Chapelle as a last week's lessons: http://www.believermag.com/iss

read=article_ghansah  

5. Piece from Salon.com, “My Happy Detroit” http://www.salon.com/2013/07/28/my_happy_detroit/ KEYWORDS: labor, Fordism, Fordism, postfordism, postfordism, mobility, urban/rural/subu urban/rural/suburban, rban, agrarian/industrial, agrarian/industrial, economy, economy, socioeconom socioeconom migration, working class, geography Fall Break 10/12-10/15 10/1618

Case Study: Atlanta and its suburbs

This is a one-class week; scan the following re

Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today, THURSDAY:

1. Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority, ch. the New South"

1. DuBois, Souls of Black Folks, ch. v "Of the Wings of Atlanta" 2. Paul Gaston, The New South Creed: A Study in Southern Mythmaking, Prologue: "The New South Symbol" 3. Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, ch. 9, "City Limits: Urban Separatism and Suburban Secession"

2.. Robert Robert A Yarbr Yarbrough ough,, "Becom "Becoming ing 'Hispa 'Hispani ni South": Central American Immigrants Ra experiences in Atlanta, GA, US" (ln-class materials: OutKast, “Rosa Parks”; Missed the Bus” Scenes from “Gone With th Win Wi nd” d”;; Sce Scene nes s fro from m “Re “Real al Ho Hous use ewi wive ves s of of Atl Atl

KEYWORDS: ethnicity, southernness, old south, new south, reverse migration, city Mid-semester Essay Due Thursday 10/24 (Assignment 2) 10/2125

Case Study: Bakersfield

Read/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings

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Read/Watch/Consider for today: Read/Watch/Consider

1. Carlan Arnett, "from Bakersfield"

1. Park Fenster, "Buck Owens, Country Country Music, and and the Struggle for Discursive Control"

2. Ph Phot otos os fr from om th the e Fa Farm rm Se Secu currit ity y Ad Admi mini nist strr http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/faho

2. Peter La Chapelle, from Proud to be an Okie, Ch. 6 "Fighting Sides: 'Okie From Muskogee,' Conservative Populism, and the Uses of Migrant Identity"

3. Cheech Marin, "What is a Chicano?" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ch marin/what-is-a-chicano_b_1472227.html

3. Devra Weber, from Dark Sweat White Gold, Gold, ch. 2 "Sin Fronteras: Mexican Workers" 4. George J. Sanchez, from Becoming Mexican  American, ch. 9 "Workers and Consumers: A Community Emerges"   KEYWORDS: migrant labor, farm industry, the West, cultural syncretism, chicano, remittance, homelands, settlements, borderlands, transnationalism 10/2811/1

Case Study: Virginia Beach

Swem Library Special Collections Visit

Read/Watch/Consider for today:  Read/Watch/Consider 1. John J. Accordino, Captives of the Cold War Economy: the Struggle for Defense Conversion in  American Communities, Ch. 3 "the Military Metroplois: Boosters, Bases and Shipbuilding in Hampton Roads"

R ead/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings

2. Charles W. Johnson "V is for Virginia: Virginia: The Commonwealth Goes to War" 3. From The Beach: Beach: A History of Virginia Beach, ch. 1 “Native Virgninans,” Virgninans,” ch. 11 “Virginia Beach: The Birth of a Resort,” ch. 13, “The Military,” and ch. 14, “The Merger.”

1. Vidoe: Public Enemy "Brothers Gonna W 2. Daily Press Artcile from 1990 3. Virginian-Pilot article from 2009 4. Ira Berlin, from Many Thousands Gone, Introduction “Societies “Societies with Slaves: The Ch Generations,” and a short selection from ch. of Atlantic Creoles in the Chesapeake”  

4. Amy Waters Yarsinke, Lost Lost Virginia Beach, ch. 3, “A Little Town Named Virginia Beach” KEYWORDS: defense industry, youth culture, Coastal south, transitional cultures, sense of place, syncretism, tourism, generations Unit Three: What Time It Is--Genealogies 11/411/8

Tracing Texts and Objects

Trains-and texts about trains!

Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today:

 Read/consider all of these today, and revisit readings

1. Mark Anthony Neal Pullman Porters (TBA)

1. Duke Ellington, “Take the A-Train”

2. Scott Nelson, from Steel Driving Man, ch. 8 https://blackboard.wm.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/blankPage?cmd=view&content_id=_964833_1&course_id=_38636_1

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“Communist Strongman”

2. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “This Train”

3. Joel Dinerstein, from Swinging the Machine, Machine, ch. 4, “Swinging the Machine; Big Bands and Streamliner Trains”

3. Kamau Brathwaite, “Trane” 4. Watch, Jimmie Rodgers, "Waiting For a

4. Kerouac KEYWORDS: Reconstruction, Reconstruction, rocking and rolling, space, place, time, movements 11/1115

Tracing Diasporas

Read/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings

Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today:

1. Philip Delorea, selections from Indians in unexpected Places, ch. 2, “Representation,” ch. 3, “Athletics,” ch. 4 “Technology”  

1. A Tribe Tribe Cal Called led Red Red,, First First Nat Nation ions s DJ gro grou u http://atribecalledred.com 2. Watch Smoke Signals  

KEYWORDS: nativism, first nation, forced migration, reservation, reparation, self-identification, self-representation, 11/1822

Tracing Practices

Read/consider all of these today, and revisit M readings

Read/Watch/Consider Read/Watch/ Consider for today: 1. Clash, “Lost in a supermarket” supermarket”

1. Kasson, from Rudeness and Civility, ch 3 “Reading the City” and ch 6, “Table Manners!” 2. Meaghan Morris, “notes from a mall”

2. Watch Repo Man  

3. Lawrence Glickman, from from A Living Wage, ch. 2, “Idle Men and Fallen Women” 4. Kristin L. Hoganson, Hoganson, from Consumers’ Imperium, “Conclusion: The Global Production of American Domesticity” 5. Jason Chambers, from Madison Avenue and the Color Line, ch. 3, “Civil Rights and the Advertising Industry”

KEYWORDS: consumerism, consumerism, the pubic, the market, commercialism, civilization, consumption, capitalism, the culture i commodity 11/26 11 /26

Screen Scr eening ing DayDay--Th -Thank anksgi sgivin ving g Break Break 11/2 11/27-1 7-12/1 2/1

 

Revisit all of the week one readings during this screening and review time—we will loop back to discuss them it comes to a close, and you are expected to know them well for the final. Also, be sure you have mastered the

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and concepts. Final Paper Due Thursday 12/5 (Assignment 3) Review 12/212/6

Revie iew w: cu culture, “th “thee po popular”, Am Americannness

Revisit ma materials from th the to top of of cl class

Final Exam: Monday, December 9th, 2-5 p.m.   Graded Item

Number of points (of 100 total)

1,000-word writing assignment due Tuesday, 9/17 (Assignment 1)  See the full instructions

10

for this assignment (and the others) after this table, at the end of the syllabus. 1,200-1,500 word mid-semester essay due Thursday, 10/24 (Assignment 2)

15

To be distributed approx. week before the paper is due (10/24) 12/5 Final project due (Assignment 4)

35

This substantial research project--including a 15-page research paper and accompanyimg multimedia (optional) will allow you to engage multiple methodologies in the study of a sample of  a particular sample of American popular culture of your choice. An assignment sheet detailing this assignment will be provided for you by Tuesday, September 17th. 12/9 12 /9 Fi Fina nall Exam Exam (U (Use se co cour urse se ke keyw ywor ords ds to un unpa pack ck a sam sampl plee fro from m Ame Ameri rica can n pop popul ular ar cu cult ltur ure) e)

15

Discussion Leading and participation, Friday sessions

15

Course Participation

10  

 ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS INSTRUCTIONS Assignment 1: 1,000-word writing assignment assignment due in hard copy, in class, Tuesday, 9/17

"Be serious, be passionate, wake up." --Susan Sontag, on cultural criticism This introductory essay will give you the opportunity to exercise your critical pen in the practice of American Studies. You will choose any *specific* object of cultural study and use it to explore, animate, and trouble the notion of what "the popular" is and isn't. Convince your classmates that this object is, in fact an example of American popular popular culture,  culture, even as it overlaps with “the folk”, the highbrow, the lowbrow, the classical, the foreign, the subcultural, or any other classification that could come in tension with the “popular.” You will tell us why it matters. matte rs. https://blackboard.wm.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/blankPage?cmd=view&content_id=_964833_1&course_id=_38636_1

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Choose an object/sample of study:

*An "object" of study can be any cultural sample, from a material commercial, kitchen, collector's, or functional object, to a performance, song, lyric, sports play, commerical, talk show segment, etc. Anything counts, and anything that has special meaning to some people and different or no meaning to others is by definition cultural. *Always, always, always zoom into a field, sample or object to choose a very specific object to study... ...as you carefully observe and think about your object, let its specificities inform your work... ...ask, Why does this matter in the bigger picture? If my audience does not particularly care about this object itself, what can it still inform them about larger issues in American popular culture? ... ...what can this “head of a pin” tell me about how the broader world works? How does this small sample exemplify big issues, historical forces, discourses, or ... ...are there issues of power at play in how this object is formed/used/represented/talked about/boughsold/discarded that my close study can uncover? Think critically:

Ask yourself: How does this resonate with some of the classic examples of American popular culture we’ve looked at thus far in this class, and how is it different? What about it is beyond language/description, and what about it is expected? What makes it unique? Why does this object appeal to me as a subject of study, when others might find it less engaging? What can the keywords and readings r eadings we've encountered thus far in class tell me about this object? Craft an argument:

You will draw from your keywords from the first week of class in shaping an argument about this relationship that will convince your readers (in this case, think of your audience as your classmates, me, and a smart/likeminded friend from home) that this object and the culture it relates to challenges challenges the mainstream or dominant status quo. Check in: what, exactly, are you trying to prove in your essay, and to whom? Engage in cultural criticism:

In this class, and in the fields related to cultural studies, being a critic is never about deciding whether an object is good or bad. Instead, it is always about uncovering hidden complexities in a cultural sample, bringing to light relations of power as they surround objects that seem to be more straightforward, and asking how this cultural sample or object can either be improved to better change the status quo, or used/talked abut in i n such a way that makes this object more capable of changing the world around it. How can you use u se evidence, taken from a very careful study of the object itself and informed by the course keywords and perspectives, to make us look past common-sense understandings and instead engage insightful, critical understandings of the object? In teh case of this assignment, you'll want to show your readers that this object counts as an object of popular culture even when it seems like it might be something else. Think about style: How do you imagine your readers? Who are YOU as a critic? What are your best features as a communicator? What are some pieces you can look to for inspiration? Some inspiration:

Greg Tate's Tate's work is always fun to read because his critical style is so strong, and he tends to choose to https://blackboard.wm.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/blankPage?cmd=view&content_id=_964833_1&course_id=_38636_1

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analyze artists and albums that defy expectations Pauline Kael, Kael, the feminist film critic, was adept at finding the real issues of interest and power luring in popular film. This is a Susan Sontag archive. Sontag archive. Her work is engaging, detailed, and incredibly insightful. Excellent work.

Assignment 2: 1,200-1,500-word mid-term writing assignment due in hard copy, in class, Thursday, 10/24

"Be serious, be passionate, wake up." --Susan Sontag, on cultural criticism This mid-term essay focuses on the keyword, "signifying." Consider the following media from Maya Angelou Angelou on signifying as a way of gaining power-frombelow by hiding oppositional words or actions within a friendly, pleasant, silly, crazy, or otherwise nonthreatening persona, communication, work of art or performance. The concept of signifying is both closely related to other forms of performed work with mutiple meanings and multiple audiences (like satire, irony, metaphor and much comedy) _and_ distinct in that it carries a hint of  aggression in the face of (potential) disempowerment. She says that she finds that only some people can properly signify, but remember that her speech is itself signified and meant to egg on her listeners--we know from throughout American history that signifying is a form that is used across regions and ethnicities by eloquent and powerful speakers to "get away with" an uncomfortable critique, disagreement and/or threat. Write a rigorously-researched essay, citing at least two readings of our course and at least one academic book or article of your own (try the Swem search function for academic articles or consulting a reference librarian for help to find an appropriate one) about one example of  signifying from American popular culture. Think of how the example allows the speaker/performer/maker to say something important that he or she might not otherwise have the power to say. Develop a solid main argument ar gument toward the beginning of the essay. Your argument ar gument will make the point that the cultural sample you have chosen represents an example of signifying in i n that it uses a hidden message that allows him or her to gain power without outward confrontation. You will then, in your essay, give 2, 3, or 4 points of evidence by which you demonstrate how the overt meaning and the hidden meaning differ and how this difference is useful to the artist/speaker/maker and his/her community. Finish your essay with an argument for why it matters that we learn this about your sample of choice--what does it tell us about this practice/form/artist/community that we may not have realized before? This is your chance to do original cultural criticism. Here is a way Josephine Baker uses signifying practices to make a mockery of racist representations of plantation life and its associated art form, minstrelsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MsXyDrf9HO0 Here is an example of signifying from Ellen DeGeneres--allowing her to make an important critique about the ways in which gay people are "othered" without making the straight audience feel defensive, thereby helping to normalize queerness in American popular culture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V5IzWgZzcY Camp, Motown, Warhol, and many other examples we've looked at in class have moments in which signifying is a method of locating power from below. Important tip:

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Syllabus

10/28/13 3:11 PM

The definition of signifying we are using for this class is drawn from the work of Henry Louis Gates, r, in his classic work, _The Signifying Monkey_ (Here is a PDF of the chapter in which he describes how he theorized this; feel free to consult or cite this if  necessary): http://www.westga.edu/~jmasters/Sig%20Monkey.pdf). It is important that you use the keyword as described above, in this assignment description, rather than rely on another online definition of signifying or signifyin' . This keyword should be used to help open up your subject of choice and illuminate the depth of its hidden meaning(s) rather than function as a vocabulary word to be used in a sentence. Polish your essay and visit the writing center for advice on arguing, structuring and/or editing your essay, or if you are learning how to use an critical essay, rather than a descriptive or strictly informational, format.   Final Paper: 15-page Resarch Paper due in hard copy, in class, Thursday, 12/5

"Be serious, be passionate, wake up." --Susan Sontag, on cultural criticism  Your final paper will involve performing a genealogy--a critically-constructed alternative history-of a contemporary cultural object, form, artist, genre, practice, style, or product. We wil talk about the genealogical method in class. You will take a course concept or keyword--say "pop art" and use it to look at a current sample of American popular culture--say Jay'Z's gallery performance--in an original way. a standard history Jay-Z's in performance might line up hisits work with hisyou other albums as While an artist and/or with theof changes hip-hop performance since inception, would instead look at the popular art of self-promotion (for example) that has accompanied the American popular arts from P.T. Barnum through Mark Twain through Andy Warhol and Jay-Z. By lining up these four objects through American history, you provide a perticular genealogy of JayZ's work that is different from what most histories might do. You may choose to incporate more objects/texts/performances (say, a geneaology of Miley Cyrus's VMAs performance as one of six women's perfomances of deviant sexuality for the purpose of self-promotion in American pop music), or only a few, very carefuly researched, examples. You will also incorporate an online/digital component/companion to your written work where you will gather links/embeds/otherwise permissible examples illustrating your chosen subject. This can be in the form of a very simple blog entry.

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https://blackboard.wm.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/blankPage?cmd=view&content_id=_964833_1&course_id=_38636_1

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