Universität Wien

124183 VK BEd 08b.3: VK Cultural Studies and Language Education (2023S)

Enacting a Softer Masculinity: The Mysterious Case of Lt. Columbo - Reading Detective Genres and Analyzing Masculinity Enactments on TV Screens Schoolmarm?

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 12 - Anglistik
Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung
Moodle

An/Abmeldung

Hinweis: Ihr Anmeldezeitpunkt innerhalb der Frist hat keine Auswirkungen auf die Platzvergabe (kein "first come, first served").

Details

max. 25 Teilnehmer*innen
Sprache: Englisch

Lehrende

Termine (iCal) - nächster Termin ist mit N markiert

Please remember: attendance in this VK is mandatory!
Registered students who do not show up to the first session without an excuse will be de-registered.
This is an in-person/on-site class.

  • Freitag 10.03. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 17.03. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 24.03. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 31.03. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 21.04. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 28.04. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 05.05. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 12.05. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 19.05. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 26.05. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 02.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 09.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 16.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 23.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Freitag 30.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19

Information

Ziele, Inhalte und Methode der Lehrveranstaltung

The TV series Columbo-in syndication between 1968 and 2003-was a TV success story. It not only turned the ‘who-did-it’ concept on its head but confronted audiences with a rather unique male hero. Lt. Columbo was calm, soft-spoken, laid back, afraid of heights but most of all smart and perceptive, instead of displaying a more normatively masculine demeanor: aggression, a willingness to do violence, and brandishing guns and chasing criminal suspects down the streets of L.A. He presented a sharp contrast to other TV-detectives populating the American TV landscape at the time: from hard-boiled detectives like Mike Hammer to tough cops like Lt. Mike Stone in the TV series The Streets of San Francisco.

This course attempts a reading of the TV series in connection with masculinity studies as well as TV and media studies. If the performative act of gender is, as Judith Butler clarifies, “a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint”(Butler, 2004:1); then what are the improvisations Lt. Columbo-whose first name the series never discloses-is enacting? And how may looking at (detective) masculinities from all angles turn into a topic of interest for the English-language classroom?

Students will use critical theory tools taken from gender studies, TV studies and post- structural theory to discuss questions like:
• What are ideas about masculinities that inform the TV show and especially its male protagonist?
• If hegemonic masculinity“is naturalized in the form of the hero and presented through forms that revolve around heroes”(Donaldson, 1996:646) of which detective fiction surely is one, then how does the character of Lt. Columbo ‘re-arrange’ what it means to embody hegemonic manhood?

Art der Leistungskontrolle und erlaubte Hilfsmittel

Requirements:

Semi-weekly readings of secondary sources (available via Moodle)
Attendance and active participation in course discussions (a maximum of two absences [3 hrs] will be allowed);
An oral presentation (a teaching approach);
An abstract;
A term paper;
A final exam

Mindestanforderungen und Beurteilungsmaßstab

• Active participation in class discussions: 20%
• Final exam: 20%
• Presentation (teaching approach): 20%
• Abstract: pass/fail
• Term paper: 40%

To pass the course, students need to attain at least 60% and complete all assignments.

Prüfungsstoff

Semi-weekly Readings
Materials/Concepts discussed in class

Literatur

TV- Episode Watchlist:
“Murder by the book” (1971)
“Murder under Glass” (1878)
“Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo” (1990)

Zuordnung im Vorlesungsverzeichnis

Studium: BEd 046/407
Code/Modul: BEd 08b.3
Lehrinhalt: 12-4686

Letzte Änderung: Fr 10.03.2023 19:48