CULTURAL STUDIES

Knowledge (contents)

Cultural and Media Studies in the UK and US (1960-1990s). Television series and Comics Studies in the US (1950s-1990s).

Know-How (skills)

Critical reading of of pop and mass culture in the US in a television series (1970s-1990s) and in a selection of representative comics and graphic novels between the beginning and the end of the Cold War.

Learning to learn

Module A “Introducing Cultural Studies” (3 CFU)

Introduction to Cultural Studies in the UK and the US. Focus on: sociology; ethnic studies, material history, gender studies, media studies.

Module B “America discovers Columbo” (3 CFU)

Television Studies. The representation of the 1970s in Columbo, by R. Levinson and W. Link (seasons 1-7) and the further development of the character (seasons 8-12).

Module C “Comics and Global Wars” (3 CFU)

Comics Studies. The representation of the American myths vis à vis war traumas in the comics and graphic novels by Carl Barks, Art Spiegelmann e Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.

►Module A

1) The Cultural Studies Reader (3rd ed.), ed. S. During, London and New York: Routledge, 2007. È obbligatorio lo studio di:

S. During, “Introduction” (pp. 1-30); S. Hall, “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies” (pp. 33-44); R. Barthes, “From Work to Text” (pp. 81-87); B. Anderson, “Imagined Communities” (pp. 253-263); J. Butler, “Subversive Bodily Acts” (pp. 371-382); Th. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightment as Mass Deception” (pp. 405-415); S. Hall, “Encoding, Decoding” (pp. 477-487).

2) S. Streeby, “Popular, Mass, and High Culture”, in A Concise Companion to American Studies, ed. J. C. Rowe, Malden (MA): Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 432-452 [*]

3) One essay, in its original edition or in translation:

R. Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy, London, Chatto & Windus, 1957; B. Rosenberg, D. M. White (eds), Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, Glencoe, The Free Press, 1957; E. Morin, L’Esprit du temps, Paris, Éditions Grasset & Frasquelle, 1962; R. Williams. Culture and Society, New York: Columbia University Press, 1963; M. McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1964; J. G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula Stories As Art and Popular Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976; L.A. Fiedler, Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self, London, Simon and Schuster, 1978; H. White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1978; C. Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, New York, Norton, 1979; M. Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité. 1: La volonté de savoir, Paris Gallimard, 1976; id., Histoire de la sexualité. 2: L’usage des plaisirs, Paris, Gallimard, 1984; id., Histoire de la sexualité. 3: Le souci de soi, Paris, Gallimard, 1984; P. Bourdieu. Ce que parler veut dire: l’économie des échanges linguistiques, Paris, Fayard, 1982; A. Khatibi, Amour Bilingue, Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1983; G.C. Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, New York, Methuen,1987; H.L. Gates jr., The Signifying Monkey. A Theory of African American Literary Criticism, New York, Oxford University Press, 1988; E.S. Herman, N. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, New York, Pantheon, 1988; J. Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture, London, Unwin Hyman, 1989; A. Easthope, Literary into Cultural Studies, New York and London, Routledge, 1991; J. Guimond, American Photography and the American Dream, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991; N. Postman. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, New York, Vintage Books, 1992; M. de Certeau, La culture au pluriel, Paris, Seuils, 1993; E. Said. Culture and Imperialism, London, Chatto & Windus, 1993; H.K. Bhabha. The Location of Culture, New York and London, Routledge, 1994; b. hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representation, New York and London, Routledge, 1994; James G. Carrier (ed.), Occidentalism. Images of the West, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995; J. Dean, Publicity’s Secret: How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2002; J.P. Russo, The Future without a Past: The Humanities in a Technological Society, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 2005; D. R. Bach, The American Counterculture. A History of Hippies and Cultural Dissidents, Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2020; M. Garber, Character. The History of a Cultural Obsession, New York, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2020.

Module B

1) T. Miller, Television Studies. The Basics, London and New York, Routledge, 2010.

2) B. Baley, D. Farber (eds.), America in the Seventies, Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2004. È obbligatorio lo studio di:

B. Bailey, E. Farmer, “Introduction” (pp. 1-8); E. Porter, “Affirming and Disaffirming Actions. Remaking Race in the 1970s” (pp. 50-74); B. Bailey, “‘She Can Bring Home the Bacon’. Negotiating Gender in the 1970s” (pp. 107-128); T. Moy, “Culture, Technology, and the Cult of Tech in the 1970s” (pp.208-228). [*]

3) M. M. Brundsdale, “Columbo: The Disheveled Detective”, in Icons of Mystery and Crime and Detection: From Sleuth to Superhero. Vol. 1, Santa Barbara (Cal.), Greenwood Icons, 2010 (pp. 199-228). [*]

4) Four episodes, for choice, from Columbo (two from seasons 1-7, two from seasons 8-12).

► Module C

1) A Comic Studies Reader, ed. J. Heer and K. Worcester, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2009. Must reads: T. Groensteen, “Why Are Comics Still in Search of Cultural Legitimation?” (pp. 3-11); R. C. Harvey, “How Comics Came to Be” (pp. 25-45); P. Coogan, “The Definition of the Superhero” (pp. 77-93); J. Vitek, “The Arrow and the Grid” (pp. 149-156); P. Lefèvre, “The Construction of Space in Comics” (pp. 157-162).

2) C. Barks, four stories chosen among: “Donald Duck and the Ghost of the Grotto” (1947); “Lost in the Andes” (1949); “Luck of the North” (1949); “Donald Duck and the Golden Helmet” (1952); “Donald Duck and the Gilded Man” (1952); “Uncle Scrooge and the Seven Cities of Cibola” (1954); “Land of the Pigmy Indians” (1957); “The Prize of Pizzarro” (1959); “That’s No Fable!” (1960); “Island in the Sky” (1960); “Crown of the Mayas” (1963); “Micro-Ducks from Outer Space” (1966). [*]

3) A. Moore, D. Gibbons, Watchmen, New York, DC Comics, 1987.

4) A. Spiegelmann, Maus. A Survivor’s Tale, New York, Pantheon Books, 1991.

5) On Barks: T. Andrae, Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2006 (pp. 3-30) [*]. On Spiegelmann: H. Chute, “History and Graphic Representation in Maus”, in A Comic Studies Reader, pp. 363-368) [*]. On Moore & Gibbons: S. Moulthrop, “See the Strings: Watchmen and the Under-Language of Media” (2011), https://electronicbookreview.com/essay/see-the-strings-watchmen-and-the-under-language-of-media/, and Z. Snyder, Watchmen (the movie), Warner Bros, 2009. On the American myths: W. C. Williams, In the American Grain (1925), New York, New Directions, 2004 (a selection) [*]. On the Cold War: “The Cold War: Causes, Major Events, and How it Ended”, History on the Net, https://www.historyonthenet.com/cold-war-causes-major-events-ended

[*] The texts marked by the star will be available in .pdf, according to the dispositions concerning their fair use.

Briefing Note on Copyright

Oral exam at the end of the course (see the oral exam schedule)

Evaluation

The following are evaluated, in order of importance: (a) skills (know-how); (b) specific knowledge about the topics of the course(knowledge) (c) the ability correctly nuild an argument: (d) effective presentation of knowledge (e) individual programs.

(a) refers to the ability of recognising, using and mastering the analytical and methodological tools of Cultural Studies — especially Media Studies (TV & Comics Studies); (b) refers to the contents of the mandatory readings and to their correct contextualization; (c) refers to logical coherence of the discourse and to the ability to produce evidence to support the argument (d) refers to analytical and synthetic skills in communication, linguistic cohesion; the adequacy of the stylistic registers used, rich vocabulary and lexical appropriateness; (e) refers to the criteria according to which individual study programs are designed.

Below is a list of possible topics on which to reflect and discuss in the oral exam. Of course, what is listed below is intended as a model and not as an exhaustive list of the questions.

1) What are Cultural Studies

2) What are Television Studies

3) What are Comics Studies

4) Discuss US in the 50s/60s/70s/80s/90s