124261 KO Critical Media Analysis (2021S)

ONLINE (digital)
Pandemics, ecological crises, economic collapse, the end of history - the current historical moment appears to be uniquely marked by a sense of impending apocalypse. And yet, as we will see in this course, images and narratives of the 'end of days' have long been a standard of cultural representations and practices, used historically towards a wide range of ideological, affective, and political ends. In this course we will learn how to read these ideological currents in diverse cultural texts and practices as they relate to the intersecting categories of race, gender, sexuality, class: zombies, mutants, toxic avengers, meteorites, nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, divine retribution, everyday expressions of heartbreak. By focusing on media representations of the 'end of the world' in diverse historical contexts, cultural practices, and representational modes (film, TV, music, games, memes, visual, print and digital media), together we will consider how, in an increasingly mechanised and digitised cultural realm, the limits and meanings of history and the human are being redrawn and remade.