Cultural Studies

SS 330.01 & .02
Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies
Pratt Institute Spring 2010

B. Ricardo Brown, Ph.D.
Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies
Office: Dekalb 419
Office Phone: 1.718.636.3567, ext. 2709
Office Hours: Monday 1:00pm-1:55pm and 4:30pm-5:30pm,
    Tuesday 1:00pm-1:55pm and by appointment
Email: brbrowniii@earthlink.com
URL: http://node801.org
Blog: http://node801.blogspot.com
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SS-330 Cultural Studies

This course explores the relations of cultural artifacts in the contemporary world to their various social contexts. Culture is understood as the material expressions and images that people create and the social environment that shapes the way diverse groups of people experience their world and interact with one another. The course focuses on the critical analysis of these various forms of media, design, mass communications, arts, and popular culture.

Course Description & Objectives

The present era has been characterized as an age of global integration and the age of a true world economy. In the midst of these changes we can often hear “culture” invoked as both an expression of this globalism and in opposition to it. Culture is not a new idea, and its full meaning remains a topic of fierce debate. Indeed, we can find a range of conflicting views regarding the meaning and role of “culture.” The use of “culture” is not limited to any one part of the ideological spectrum, especially when used as a political weapon, as a rallying point for identity, and as the artifacts and practices that must be either preserved or destroyed.

Cultural Studies emerged from the attempts to understand the social complexity and political uses of “culture” to debates over “high & low” art, the value of the artifacts of popular culture (television, music, etc.), or the investigation of authority and power in the social relations of everyday life, Cultural Studies examined and intervened in some of the most pressing issues of its day. Your course of study will explore these interventions as moments in the genealogy of Cultural Studies. We will examine how Cultural Studies offered a critical understanding of what Max Horkheimer termed “life as it is lived.” Finally, attention will be paid to the fate of Cultural Studies as it became accepted and co-opted by various academic disciplines, with special attention to the reception of Cultural Studies in the United States.

This course is designed to give you a strong foundation in the historical setting and the variations in Cultural Studies. You are no expected to already know this, nor are you expected to already be familiar with some of the texts we will use and issues that will be raised. If you will finish the course with an understanding that there are different ways of understanding the history of the present day and its culture of everyday life.

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Course of Study

Session One: Introduction to the Course
The Disjunctures of the 20^th Century & the Origins of Cultural Studies
Degenerate Art

Session Two: Enlightenment
Immanuel Kant. “What is Enlightenment?”
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kant-whatis.html
Debate between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky (1971)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1634494870703391080#
Michael Wood Hitler's Search for the Holy Grail (the Ahneneber)
Raymond Williams. Civilization, 57-60; History, 146-148; Humanity, 148-151; Individual 161- 165; Western, 333-334. from Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society.

Session Three: The End of Enlightenment
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno Dialectic of Enlightenment, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” 129-167.
In Our Time --- The Frankfurt School (podcast) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20100114.shtml
Michel Foucault “What is Enlightenment?”
http://foucault.info/documents/whatIsEnlightenment/foucault.whatIsEnlightenment.en.html
Jorge Luis Borges “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote”
In Our Time --- Borges (podcast)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20070104.shtml
Umberto Eco “Casablanca” from Travels in Hyper-Reality.
Casablanca (1942), part I

Session Four: Defining “the Postmodern” and Popular Culture
Casablanca (1942), part II
Umberto Eco “Casablanca” from Travels in Hyper-Reality.
Jean-Francois Lyotard “Defining the Postmodern” in During, 142-145.
Jorge Luis Borges “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote”
In Our Time --- Borges (podcast)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20070104.shtml

Session Five: British Cultural Studies
Stuart Hall Video Lecture Representation and the Media.
Stuart Hall in During, “Encoding, decoding,” in During, 507-517.
Dick Hebdige in During, “The Function of Subculture,” in During, 441-450.

Session Six: British Cultural Studies
Raymond Williams Art, 40-42; Culture, 87-92; Criticism, 84-86; Hegemony, 144-146; Ideology, 152-158; Intellectual, 169-171; Society, 291-295; Sociology, 295-296. from Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Revised edition. New York: Oxford University Press. (1976) 1983.
Raymond Williams. “Advertising: the Magic System” from Culture and Materialism: Selected Essays. New York: Verso. (1980) 2005. 170-195
E.P. Thompson. “Agenda for a Radical History.” from Making History: Writings on History and Culture. New York: New Press. 1994. 358-364.
Stanley Aronowitz, “British Cultural Studies,” 108-130.


Session Seven: The American Reception
O'Conner, Alan. “The Problem of American Cultural Studies” in John Storey, What is Cultural Studies? New York: Arnold/St. Martin's Press. 1997. 187-196.
Pfister, Joel. “The Americanization of Cultural Studies.” in Storey, 287-299.
Stanley Aronowitz, “Cultural Study in Postmodern America,” from Roll Over Beethoven, 167-202.

Session Eight: The American Reception---- Politics and Identity
John d’Emillio “Capitalism and Gay Identity.” from Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, & Sharan Thompson, eds. 1983. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Cornel West in During, “The New Cultural Politics of Difference,”in During 203-220.
Stuart Hall “What is this ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” Social Justice, Vol. 20, nos 1-2. 104-114.
bell hooks “A Revolution in Values: the Promise of Multicultural Change,” in During, 233- 240.

Session Nine: Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture
John Storey. 1996. Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: Theories & Methods. Chapters 1,3,5, and 7.

Session Eleven: Towards a Society of Control
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality” 81-119.
The Trial. Directed by Orson Wells.
Franz Kafka “In the Penal Colony” from The Penal Colony.

Session Twelve: Towards a Society of Control
Brazil
Herbert Marcuse “New Forms of Control” from One Dimensional Man, 1-19.
Gilles Deleuze “Postscript on Control Societies.” from Negotiations. New York: Columbia University Press.

Session Thirteen: Power and Intellectuals
Michel Foucault, “Space, Power and Knowledge,” in During, 134-141.
Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault “On Intellectuals.”
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari “Politics.” from Negotiations.
Debate between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky (1971).

Session Fourteen: Cultural Studies and its legacies
Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno: Exchange on popular protest and the student movement
Raymond Williams. 1997. “The Future of Cultural Studies” in John Storey, What is Cultural Studies? New York: Arnold/St. Martin's Press. 168-177.
Stuart Hall. 1997. “Race Culture, and Communications: looking backward and forward at Cultural Studies” in John Storey, What is Cultural Studies? New York: Arnold/St. Martin's Press. 336-343.
Stuart Hall “Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies” in During, 97-112.

Final Session: Cultural Studies and its legacies at Pratt Institute
Essays by Pratt Faculty including: Professors Ivan Zatz, Lisabeth During, May Joseph, Jon Beller, Suzanne Verderber, Michael Eng, Miriam Greenberg, etc.
B. Ricardo Brown. 2007. “A City Without Walls: Notes on Terror and Counter-Terrorism.” Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination, Spring, Vol. 2, no. 1.

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Course Requirements and Procedures

Focused Writing assignments
These will be short in class essays that will serve as the basis for discussions. You will be given 10 minutes to write a comment on a topic chosen from the reading for that session.

In addition, you will add each comment to the LMS forum for the course. This will serve as a means for those who did not get to make their comment in class and as an archive of earlier comments that will be accessible to everyone in the course.

Final Essay
One 10 page essay will be required at the end of the semester. The topic will be given before the final class. Essays are due one week after the last class.

Absences and Lateness
Persistent absences or lateness will result in a reduction of your final grade consistent with the policies of the university and of the department of Social Science & Cultural Studies

Grades and Incompletes
Focused writings/postings to the LMS forum, participation, and the final essay will each comprise 1/3 (33%) of your final grade. All focused writing assignments must be distributed to the forum to be counted as completed.

An incomplete will be granted only in accordance with the established policy of the university. An incomplete is “available only if the student has been in regular attendance, has satisfied all but the final requirements of the course, and has furnished satisfactory proof that the work was not completed because of illness or other circumstances beyond control” (Pratt Institute Bulletin). If you do not turn in your final work on time, and you do not have an approved incomplete, you will fail the course.

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Readings

Most of the readings will be available through the LMS site for the course (at my.pratt.edu) . The exceptions are the two required texts by Williams and Storey. The reading for the class will be drawn from these and other sources that will be noted in the course lectures.

Required Texts:

Raymond Williams. (1976) 1985. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Revised edition. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN-10: 0195204697; ISBN-13: 978-0195204698

John Storey. 2003. Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: Theories and Methods
University of Georgia Press; Second edition. ISBN-10: 082032566X; ISBN-13: 978-0820325668.

It is highly recommended that you also purchase:

Simon During, ed. 1999. The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd edition. Routledge; ISBN: 0415137543. ON LIBRARY RESERVE
Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, translated by Edmund Jephcott. 2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford University Press. ISBN: 0804736332. NOT THE OLDER TRANSLATION PUBLISHED BY CONTINUUM. ON LIBRARY RESERVE
Jorge Luis Borges. 1989. Ficciones. Anthony Kerrigan (Editor), Anthony Bonner (Translator). Grove Press; ISBN: 0802130305
Stanley Aronowitz. 1993. Roll over Beethoven: The Return of Cultural Strife. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN: 0819562629. ON LIBRARY RESERVE
Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, eds. 1988. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. University of Illinois Press. ISBN-10: 0252014014; ISBN-13: 978-0252014017.
John Storey, ed. 1997. What is Cultural Studies? A Reader. New York: Arnold/St. Martin's Press. 1997. ISBN-10: 0340652403; ISBN-13: 978-0340652404 .
Michel Foucault. 1973. The Order of Things: A History of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage. ASIN: B000HZIHD0
Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt, eds. 1982. The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. New York: Continuum.
Raymond Williams. Materialism and Culture. New York: Verso. ISBN-10: 1844670600
ISBN-13: 978-1844670604.
Karl Marx. 1956. The Holy Family or the Critique of Critical Criticism. New York: Foreign Languages Publishing House. ASIN: B0007FGREQ

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Selected Documentaries, Films, and Music to be used during the Course

These will be made available in class or on the LMS

Degenerate Art Exhibit documentary.
Michael Wood Hitler’s Search for the Holy Grail
Casablanca
Stuart Hall lecture: Representation and the Media
Debate between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault
bell hooks interview: Cultural Criticism & Transformation
Committee for a Free Congress History of Political Correctness
Marcuse's Hippopotamus
The Trial (Orson Wells version)
Metropolis
Brazil
Dr. Strangelove
Arnold Schoenberg Pierrot lunaire
Alban Berg Seven Early Songs
Anton Webern Two Songs; Variations for Piano; Five Movements for String Quartet; arrangement of Bach's Musical Offering; Quartet for violin, clarinet, tenor sax and piano
John Cage “She is Asleep” duet for voice and prepared piano; As Slow as Possible; Music for Prepared Piano
Charles Ives Songs
Henry Cowell Advertisement
Steve Reich Octet; Nagoya Marimba; Music for 18 Musicians
Dagmar Krause Songs of Kurt Weill and Tank Battles: Songs of Hans Eisler
Carla Bley Musique Machanique
William S. Burroughs No More Stalins, No More Hitlers (with John Cale)
Sidney Bechet High Society
Loius Armstrong & King Oliver Canal Street Blues
Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker Bebop
The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet Free Jazz
John Coltrane My Favorite Things (live)
Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane Off Minor
Skeleton Crew (Fred Frith & Tom Cora) We're Still Free
Robert Fripp Frippertronics Improvisation live at the World Financial Center, Nov. 2000
Astor Piazzolla musical settings of some poems of Jorge Luis Borges

Suggested sources for purchasing the readings:

St. Marks Bookshop http://www.stmarksbookshop.com
The Strand www.strandbooks.com – the huge second-hand store on 12^th Street & Broadway.
Book Culture Broadway and 114th Street http://www.bookculture.com/
The Advanced Book Exchange www.abebooks.com
Barnes and Nobles www.bn.com
Amazon http://www.amazon.com