24 Janeiro 2022, 08:00
•
Cecília Maria Beecher Martins
Program
The program will
begin with a discussion of the concepts that govern the academic discourse
surrounding the concepts of culture, ideology and popular culture. Students
will also learn how to read popular culture objects from a semiotic perspective
using the methodologies presented by Pierce and Saussure as well as Hodge’s
conception of social semiotics.
While the emphasis of
this program will be North American Popular Culture (esp. USA), from the post WWII era to the early
decades of the 21st century, we will begin by looking at the
continent’s historic background. We will also look at the factors that
permitted the shift from local and folk cultural productions to the development
of popular culture endeavours with a global impact.
Working principally
with popular literature, comic books & graphic novels as well as cinema and
TV series, students will be invited to question how popular culture objects
influence personal and collective narratives in a post-modern world.
Evaluation
2 Written Tests: 70% (35x2) The first written test will focus on the theoretical
framework(s) that define the concept of popular culture; the second how these
concepts can aid the reading of objects of North American popular culture. Students
will have to answer questions on materials in the research sets in the second
written test.
Class Participation: 15% There is quite a lot of reading associated with this
CU. Therefore, the class participation grade will be attributed for class
presence and discussion of core texts.
Oral Presentation: 15% This
is an 8-minute individual presentation where students present one aspect of the
material in the research set from one or a combination of the perspectives studied
including semiotics, social semiotics, popular culture & civilization,
Afrofuturism or any other appropriate framework. The presentation must be supported
by suitable visual aids.
Students
can and should select the research set according to interest. But as one class
will be attributed to each of the five research sets, roughly the same number
of students (10-12) will be attributed to each research set. Themes are attributed on a
first come, first served basis, so please inform me of your choices as soon as
possible.
Students
do not need to produce a single presentation, but they do need to communicate with
each other as a group to avoid repetition of themes. If a theme is repeated a
single grade will be attributed and split (basically this will yield a negative
mark). If however, 2 or 3 students want to pursue a more extended issue they
can do this – but again each member of those mini-groups must speak for 8
minutes and the grades are individual.
Grades
will be attributed for the following criteria:
1) Depth of knowledge of the subject matter and
the theoretical framework
2) Clarity of presentation & fluency of
delivery. As many of you will be presenting in a non-native language,
grammatical accuracy will not be a major issue, but communication of content –
sharp, dynamic style with visual aids that support your arguments – and diction
& pronunciation – so use words you can pronoun easily – and are vitally
important.
While
the CU will be taught in English, and therefore the oral presentation should
also be made in English, all written evaluations may be presented in
English or Portuguese
Research Set 1: Class structure &
representations of the American Dream and its flaws: The Great Gatsby (novel
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925; film, dir. Jack Clayton, script Francis Ford
Coppola, 1974; film, dir. & script Baz Luhrmann, 2013).
Research Set 2: Construction and
deconstructing an American ideal? To Kill a Mocking Bird (novel Harper
Lee,1960; film Robert Mulligan 1962) and Go
Set a Watchman (novel Harper Lee, 2015).
Research Set 3: Not really an
American Dream The Grapes of Wrath (film Tom Ford, 1940); Hillbilly
Elegy (novel J.D. Vance, 2016; film Ron Howard 2020) with the country music
of Hank Willians & Johnny Cash & the protest music of Woody Guthrie and
Bruce Springfield.
Research Set 4: Superheroes and the
development of the American graphic novel from The Yellow Kid (Richard
Felton Outcault, 1896) to Batman, The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller,
1986) and Maus, A Survivor’s Tale (Art Spiegelman, 1986).
Research Set 5: Afrofuturism and the writing and (re)writing African
American representations in the USA from Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain,
1884) to The Birth of a Nation (G.W. Griffith, 2015); from the Harlem Renaissance to Stan Lee’s
introduction of black superheroes (including T'Challa/the Black Panter) in Marvel Comics in the 1960s to the movie Black
Panther (Ryan Coolger, 2018) and even Lemonade (Beyoncé, 2016).
Bibliography Bigsby, Christopher
(ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. CUP. 2007.
Isenberg, Nancy White
Trash. Atlantic Books. 2017.
Maasik, Sonia, and
Jack Solomon (eds.) Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture
for Writers, Ninth Edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2018.
Miller, Toby (ed). The
Routledge Companion to Global Popular Culture. Routledge. 2015.
Storey, John. Cultural
Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction 8th Ed. Routledge.
2018.