124265 KO Critical Media Analysis (2024W)

The intrinsic paradox of having a body and being a body has been complicated by contemporary mediatization of corporeality. Embedded in consumerist, capitalist and other ideologies, the body has been used to sell products and to entertain, but also to coerce, dominate and suppress. Living in this ideologically informed media matrix, we sometimes fail to see how much bodies are constructed, reconstructed, violated and adjusted to serve a given purpose. This seminar will equip students with some necessary instruments to read, analyze and interpret contemporary media bodies.
We will look at and read about ideal, naked/nude bodies, examine sexualized and gendered bodies. We will neither strain from monstrous, mutated and mutilated bodies nor from the technologized and virtual ones. We will deal with such issues as ideology, heterosexual matrix, power relations, gaze and objectification.

By the end of term, students will have:
- familiarized themselves with and have practiced the use of select cultural studies' concepts, theories and methods
- analyzed a spectrum of media texts and acquired media-critical competences
- offered critical reflection on representations of corporeality
- practiced constructing careful arguments to make their points in the appropriate language and in a suitable format.

The class will be based on teacher's input and students' prior reading, which will enable engaged discussions, either in small groups or in a larger forum.