Popular culture is a large topic, and it will be necessary to offer a selection of topics for the lecturer-led sessions ("lectures"). Students will be able to extend their interests to cover more topics in student-led sessions ("workshops") and for assignments, -- please come and negotiate this with staff. The structure of the course is different this year from previous years’ too, and there is much more responsibility placed on students to present and organise discussions.

Detailed reading is given for each week’s work, and this can be modified or developed according to interest. There are now several recent discussions of the work of 'British Cultural Studies' and its influence, which might be helpful as general reading and background:

Davies I                                       Cultural Studies and Beyond
Gelder and Thornton (eds)          The Subcultures Reader
Grossberg, L et al. (Eds)              Cultural Studies
Harris D                                      From Class Struggle to the Politics of Pleasure
McGuigan J                                 Critical Populism
Turner G                                      British Cultural Studies
(see also the pieces by Schwartz and Miller in Cultural Studies vol. 8)

NB There are now several excellent electronic journals in this field Ctheory or Cultural Studies Times  Email me for help or suggestions:

Cluster 1  Subcultures
Week 1 Introduction and admin
Week 2 Youth Cultures 1

The lecture introduces the classic work of the 1970s going on at the
Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS).
Reading
Brake M Comparative Youth Culture
Cohen S Folk Devils and Moral Panics (esp Intro)
Downes D & Rock P Deviant Interpretations (esp Ch.1)
Hall S & Jefferson T (eds) Resistance Through Rituals
Hall S (et al) Policing the Crisis (esp chs.1,2,3)

Workshop
Students will investigate one subculture of the seventies and evaluate
how it is discussed in this tradition. Reading: a chapter from Hall & Jefferson

Week 3 Youth Cultures 2
The fate of gramscian work on youth subcultures is discussed here - the attempts to extend the work to cover new youth groups and to account for theoretical changes
Reading
CCCS The Empire Strikes Back
Frith S in Haralambos M (Ed) Sociology:New Directions
Hall S  "New Ethnicities" in Donald & Rattansi A (eds)’Race’Culture and Difference
Hebdige D  Subcultures - the Meaning of Style
Hebdige D Hiding in the Light(esp chs.1,2,3)
MacRobbie A  Postmodernism and Popular Culture

Workshop
Are there still ('proper') youth subcultures in modern Britain? Reading: Frith in Haralambos

Cluster 2 -- Media
Weeks  4 and 5 Media 1 & 2

The lectures will introduce students to some of the key themes of Media Studies and some of the techniques available for textual analysis. Although the particular content of the sessions can be tailored to your interests, the lectures will tell a ‘story’ of media studies about the relationship between text and viewer and will include structuralism, semiotics, realism pleasure and ideology. In week 4, the focus will be on the debates surrounding some early approaches in media studies around realism, ideology and what is referred to as positioning theory. In week 5, the focus will shift to an overview of some of the approaches that highlight the active viewer and the pleasures of media consumption.

Reading

Cook P (ed) The Cinema Book (sections 3,4,5)
Kellner D Media Culture (ch 1)
McGuigan D Cltural Populism (section on TV)
Morley D Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies
Moores S Interpreting Audiences
Ang, I Living Room Wars
Fiske, J  Television Culture
Barthes R Image,Music, Text...

Workshops
Week 4 - Seminar reading - narrative pleasures in Barthes

Week 5 - Seminar reading Ang (ch 1)

Week 6 ‘Flexible Study’

Week 7 Postmodern Film?
The significance of the media in postmodern thought can hardly be overstated.  This lecture will introduce some of the reasons why, including a look at 'postmodern’ film.

Reading
Denzin N Images of Postmodern Society
Connor S Postmodernist Culture (ch 6)
Kellner D Media Culture (section on postmodernism)
Strinati D Theories of Popular Culture

Workshop
Seminar reading - Denzin N  Images of Postmodern Society (section on Blue Velvet)

Week 8 Video Games
The lecture introduces some central debates about electronic games, their pleasures, and the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ effects on the player.

Reading
Kinder M Playing With Power...
Greenfield, P Mind and Media....
Buckingham D  Moving Images
Gray A  A Video Playtime...
Fiske J Reading the Popular (ch 4)

Workshop
Students play and discuss electronic games. Reading: Fiske
 
Cluster 3  Leisure, Pleasure and Postmodernism

Week 9 Leisure Debates
The lecture introduces some classic debates in this fragmented field, especially the ones between gramscians and figurationalists.

Reading
Clarke J and Critcher C (eds) The Devil Makes Work
Hargreaves J Sport, Power and Culture
Rojek C (ed) Leisure for Leisure (esp. Moorhouse)
Deem R All Work and No Play?
Harris D From Class Struggle...

Workshop
Students will attempt to elaborate (sic) the debate by discussing what it feels like to do (or to watch) sport. Reading:  Dunning on football hooliganism

Week 10 From Leisure to Pleasure
The lecture considers the interest in non-official leisure and the various attempts to explain the pleasure in it for the flaneur, the cruiser, the raider etc. This is another chance to pick up some themes in postmodernism too, of course.

Reading
Fiske J Reading the Popular
Fiske J Understanding Popular Culture
Bennett T (et al) Popular Culture and Social Relations (Mercer, Bennett)
Frisby D in Rojek C (ed.)Leisure for Leisure
Rojek C Decentring Leisure

Workshop
Students will discuss Rojek’s thesis on the ‘decentring’ of  leisure. Reading: Rojek’s Conclusion

Week 11 The Disney Experience
The lecture reviews some approaches to the pleasures and (ideological?)effects encountered in Disney theme parks.

Reading
Bryman A Disney and His Worlds
Fjellman S Vinyl Leaves
The Project on Disney Inside the Mouse...
Smoodin E (Ed) Disney Discourse...
Rojek C 'Disney Culture’ in Leisure Studies2 (1993)

Workshop
Students can relive their memories as a tourist in one of the parks (bring photographs!) OR be a virtual tourist by exploring one of the (many) Disney websites e.g.:the main Disney site, or the recollections of an earlier tourist

Reading: The Project on Disney

ESSAYS -- examples only for self-assessment
.
Analysts have seriously overestimated the significance of youth cultures’ Discuss.

To what extent are participants in current youth cultural pursuits liable to minimise the social factors involved in their formation and persistence?

What are the pleasures and the risks for those who play electronic games?

To what extent can leisure activity be seen as a ‘disciplinary apparatus’?

What ideologies might be apparent in attractions on offer in the Disney sites, and to what extent do they influence the visitor?

Using a film of your choosing, outline the features which allow you to regard it as a ‘postmodernist’ rather than a ‘modernist’ text.

Discuss the contention that bringing a high degree of theoretical sophistication to bear to the study of the media is itself a postmodern phenomenon.

Critically evaluate the contribution of ‘positioning theory’ to the study of film texts.

Using examples drawn from the media, evaluate the contribution of Roland Barthes to the study of popular culture.