124010 VO Introduction to Cultural Theories (2024S)

This lecture course will introduce you to major theoretical approaches, key practices and selected issues relevant to the study of (mostly non-literary) cultural texts with a focus on the United States. We will learn that cultural theories make use of a plurality of approaches and methodologies. This diversity also reflects the plurality of possible meanings that can be associated with the concept of culture in general and popular culture in particular.
The first part of the lecture focusses on methodological aspects and media literacy (from film to music, from digital culture to body studies) as well as myth criticism as one approach in American Studies. In the second part, we will apply these methods to the different "Myths that Made America" (Heike Paul; see course reading), from the Self-Made Man to the Melting Pot, by "doing" Cultural Studies together, analyzing and discussing paintings, photographs, film clips, and other audiovisual material. Throughout the semester, we will investigate key issues such as historical contingencies, identities shaped by intersectionality as there are gender, race or class or the interrelation between power and knowledge. We will also explore a number of theoretical underpinnings and perspectives of cultural studies, including semiotics (R. Barthes), post-Marxist cultural studies, discourse analysis, psychoanalytic theory (Laura Mulvey), and subculture studies in lecture sessions. Students will be provided with the critical tools (theoretical, analytical, historical) necessary to analyze and evaluate cultural phenomena and popular media related to the United States as we inquire into
(1) the processes of meaning making in the production and consumption of power-discourses and cultural artifacts, and
(2) the dynamics of representation, power, and knowledge as they relate to questions of class, race, sexuality & gender.