Optional English Elective - Cultrual Studies

Department of Media Studies

Christ College, Bangalore

Subject: Optional English

Paper VI: Cultural Studies (Elective)

1.1 Paper Description:

The elective paper in Cultural Studies is designed to help students update their knowledge and critical debates within Cultural Studies. The paper will expose the students to the various forms of culture surrounding us at every moment which in addition to entertaining us or enticing us, carry implied messages about who we are, what world we live in, and what we should value. This course proposes to help them learn to decode these messages. Students will analyse and write about cultural forms as texts to be read for what they tell us about men and women, wealth and power, nation and technology and so on. Students will also learn basic semiotics, the study of how meaning is produced, directed and circulated through texts, a process which also produces subjectivities and identities.

1.2 Objectives of the Paper

The paper intends to provide students with the opportunity to develop and critically apply their knowledge and understanding of theoretical and critical debates in Cultural Studies, as well as of key historical developments in intellectual debates. Further, it will help them develop a range of skills in independent research, critical analysis, verbal and written communication and other advanced transferable skills.

1.3 Paper content

Understanding Cultural Studies

• Mrinalini Sebastian “Understanding Cultural Studies”
• Raymond Williams “Culture”, “Popular”
• Henry Giroux, et al. “The Need for Cultural Studies: Resisting Intellectuals and Oppositional Public Spheres”
• Pramod K Nayar. “Reading Culture”
• Richard Howells “Semiotics”
• Roland Barthes. “Myth Today”.
• A.K Ramanujan, “Introduction,” Folktales from India
• Jean-Francois Lyotard. The first four chapters of The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
• Richard Howells “Ideology”
• CSCS. “Femininity – Masculinity”
• CSCS. “Legal Identity and Culture”
• CSCS. “Imagining the Nation”
• Ajay Gudavarthy. “The Identity Question”
• Simon During “Introduction” from Cultural Studies Reader 3^rd ed
• Stuart Hall. “Encoding/Coding”

City

• Ravi S. Vasudevan. “The Cities of Everyday Life”
• Nitin Govil. “The Metropolis and Mental Strife: The city in science fiction cinema”
• Joy Chatterjee. “Long Bus Drive”
• Veena Das. “Violence and Translation”
• Ole Bouman. “Hyper-architecture”
• Rana Dasgupta. “The Face of the Future: Biometric surveillance and progress”
• Shuddhabrata Sengupta. “Everyday Surveillance: ID cards, cameras and the database of ditties”
• Sam de Silva. “Blind Intelligence”
• David Lyon. “Surveillance: After September 11, 2001”
• Lawrence Liang. “The Black and White (And Grey) of Copyright”
• Lawrence Liang. “Urban Transformations and Media Piracy”
• Lawrence Liang. “Obscenity, Decency and Morality”

Cinema

• Pramod Nayar “Screen Culture”
• Laura Mulvey. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”.
• Ravi S Vasudevan. “Urban Action Films”.
• Ashis Nandy. “Introduction: Indian Popular Cinema as the Slum’s Eye View of Politics”

Cyberculture

• Tony Thwites, Lloyd Davis, Warwick Mules. “Cyberculture”
• Mark Poster. “Postmodern Virtualities”
• Manuel Castells “The Network Society and Organizational Change”
• Manuel Castells “Identity in the Network Society”

1.4 Bibliography

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trs Annette Lavers. London: Vintage, 1993.

Castells, Manuel “The Network Society and Organizational Change.” Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley, 2001

--- “Identity in the Network Society.” Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley, 2001

CSCS. “Femininity – Masculinity”

--- “Imagining the Nation”

---. “Legal Identity and Culture”

Durham, Meenakshi Gigi, and Douglas M. Kellner. Ed. Media and Cultural Studies Keyworks. Malden: Blackwell, 2001.

During, Simon. Cultural Studies Reader 3^rd ed New York: Routledge, 2007.

Giroux, Henry, David Shumway, Paul Smith, and James Sosnoski, “The Need for Cultural Studies: Resisting Intellectuals and Oppositional Public Spheres” http://theory.eserver.org/need.html

Howells, Richard. Visual Culture. Cambridge: Polity, 2003.

Lawrence Liang. “Obscenity, Decency and Morality”

Lawrence Liang. “The Black and White (And Grey) of Copyright”

Lawrence Liang. “Urban Transformations and Media Piracy”

Liang, Lawrence. “The Black and White (And Grey) of Copyright.”. ‘World Information City’. Bangalore: 14-20 Nov 2005, p 2

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press, 1985

Mark Poster. The Second Media Age Blackwell 1995 http://www.hnet.uci.edu/mposter/writings/internet.html

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975) http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/~lhodges/vpnc.html

Nandi, Ashish ed. The Secret Politics of Our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Indian Popular Cinema. Delhi: OUP, 1998.

Nayar, Pramod K. Reading Culture: Theory, Praxis, Politics. New Delhi: Sage, 2006.

Ramanujan, A.K “Introduction” Folktales from India, New Delhi: Penguin, 1994.

Thwites, Tony, Lloyd Davis, and Warwick Mules. Introducing Cultural and Media Studies: A Semiotic Approach. New York: Palgrave, Rpt 2005.

Vasudevan, Ravi S. et al. SARAI Reader 02. Delhi/Amsterdam: SARAI, 2002.

Williams, Raymond. Keywords Rev. Ed. NewYork: OUP, 1983.

1.5 Teaching Methodology

It is important that the students should come to class having read the essays. And therefore prior reading of the essays should be insisted upon on part of the students. The class should be used to discuss the issues raised by the essays and not go through in detail. Print and visual texts could be used during the classroom discussion. Total no. of teaching hours: 60.

1.6 Testing Pattern

Students need to write two research papers on which they should work throughout the course. The students may be allowed to choose their areas of interest within the broad framework of the papers.

Paper 1. The paper length for the first paper could be of 7-10 pages. The first submission of the paper could become CIA-1 and the final submission could fulfil the requirements of mid-semester examination.

Paper 2. The length of this paper could be 15-20 pages. The first submission of the this paper could become CIA-2. The final submission could fulfil the requirements of mid-semester examination.

For both the papers, before the student submits the final paper, the draft papers should be circulated for peer review. The final submission should include the first corrected draft, peer marked drafts (minimum of two) and the final paper. At least 40% of the paper should be reworked based on peer review and teacher’s comments in both the cases.

Both the papers should adhere to the standard formats of writing research papers.

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