120018 AR Theory (MA) (2010W)

This course uses two popular texts and one contemporary cultural theory reader as a means to approach an understanding of modern cultural theory. The texts in question are: Philip K. Dick's science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968); Ridley Scott's loosely based film of that novel, Blade Runner (Final Cut) (2007); and A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader edited by Antony Easthope and Kate McGowan. There are reasonably priced copies of this text available through Amazon. As many of the extracts in the Reader are dense and difficult, students should make every effort to have as many as possible of them read before the commencement of the course. Week by week we shall be addressing the primary text in terms of a range of theoretical issues, including Ideology (Marx, Althusser, Fanon, Said, Bhabha); Subjectivity (Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, Foucault); Difference (Derrida); Gender (Freud, Cixous, Mulvey, Butler); and Postmodernism (Lyotard, Baudrillard, Derrida, Zizek).