120109 AR Advanced Cultural Studies Course = Cultural/Media Studies 1/2 (Cultural/Media Studies) Lit. (2011S)

This course focuses on the conjunction between the appeal and the rejection of 'American culture' since the end of the Cold War. What factors are there on the affective level that make certain products/texts popular or unpopular? And more importantly, what happens when American culture becomes entangled in affective encounters with worldwide consumers?

An analysis of how people feel about 'America' raises interesting questions concerning the construction of identities of audiences and consumers through these affective encounters. Processes of Americanization can connect affect (associated with popular culture in general and new media in particular) to national and transnational identity formations in Europe and around the world. Such analysis of the politics of culture also shifts critical attention away from notions of American culture linked to a specific place (i.e. the United States) to the processes of flows and processes of transfer across places, in which 'America' is an imaginary cultural descriptor. In what ways are consumers invested in this cultural transfer and the diverse appropriations of 'America' and which effects do these affective investments have?

We will look especially at manifestations of such processes in Austria and Germany. Part of the teaching collaboration 'Transatlantic Dialogues: American / Cultural Studies as a Transnational Project,' the course includes cooperation with Bradley University, which will bring students to Vienna and to our classroom during their annual short-term study abroad; and with Saarland University, where a parallel course will be taught by Prof. Astrid Fellner and is linked to our class via blended learning.