ENGL 676

Introduction to Cultural Studies

Professor David Kaufmann                                      459 Robinson Hall

(703) 993-2766                                                          Office Hrs: M 1:30-3:00 by appt

dkaufman@gmu.edu                           

 

 

It is impossible to look at modern advertising without realizing that the material object being sold is never enough: this indeed is the crucial cultural quality of its modern forms. If we were sensibly materialist, in that part of our living in which we use things, we should find most advertising to be of an insane irrelevance. Beer would be enough for us, without the additional promise that in drinking it we show ourselves to be manly, young in heart or neighbourly. A washing machine would be a useful machine to wash clothes, rather than an indication that we are forward-looking or an object of envy to our neighbours. But if these associations sell beer and washing machines, as some of the evidence suggests, it is clear that we have a cultural pattern in which the objects are not enough but must be validated, if only in fantasy, by association with social and personal meanings which in a different cultural pattern might be more directly available. The short description of the pattern we have is magic: a highly organized and professional system of magical inducements and satisfactions, functionally very similar to magical systems in simpler societies, but rather strangely coexistent with a highly developed scientific technology.  Raymond Williams, ÒAdvertising: The Magic SystemÓ (1961)

 

 

A way to talk about Cultural Studies (CS)

Many courses in and on CS concentrate on its rich and complicated past. We wonÕt do that.  We will concentrate on two of the leading themes of CS in the United States. This is an unfortunate limitation—CS was first conceived in the UK and has developed in interesting way sacross the English-speaking world-- but our time is, by necessity, very short.

Here is how I see CS and therefore see this course.

CS works from two definitions of culture. The first derives from a standard Enlightenment opposition between culture and nature. In CS this opposition allows us to show how illegitimate forms of domination justify themselves—and usually successfully--by claiming that oppressive institutions and practices rest on immutable natural laws. (Think about the Òlaw of supply and demand.Ó Is this the same kind of law as the law of gravity? What if it wasnÕt?) CS tries to demonstrate that these institutions and practices are the products of contingent histories. That is, they were developed in specific places at specific times in response to particular conditions and are therefore susceptible to change. Natural law, as we understand it, cannot be changed. (Think of Star Trek: ÒYou cannot change the laws of nature, Jim.Ó Think about the fact that the starship is called the Enterprise.)  So, CS maintains (explicitly in its Marxist, more implicitly in its post-Foutcaultian forms),  that what people have created, people can transform. The ideological position that what is, must be is fetishism in its original, anthropological sense: it is to bow down to the creations of our own labor. This kind of secular idolatry depends on a kind of magical thinking.

The second definition sees society as a distinct totality and therefore maintains that every component-every institution and practice—both structures and is structured by society as a whole. Social relations within modern capitalist societies are ultimately determined by the relations of production and distribution, although such determination is not always direct or clear. To understand what a specific social fact means or how it works, we have to figure out its place in the social totality.

                        As I have indicated, these definitions of the C in CS have a decidedly Marxist bent. But CS goes beyond an interest in class and therefore beyond Marxism. In the end, IÕd like to hazard that CS in all its forms has been particularly interested in the way that the present social dispensation reproduces itself. For that reason weÕll be looking at two sub-themes that help explain this reproduction. The first entails the investigation of the ways that class structure gets reproduced.  If capitalism is to survive with the minimum of overt repression, it needs to convince us that its organization is a product of human nature and of the inviolable nature of the very heart of capitalism, the commodity. The second sub-theme investigates the ways that contemporary society reinforce ÒtraditionalÓ  racial, gender and sexual identities.

CS has a lot to offer the study of literature. For instance, consider that odd human artifact, the poem. What kind of questions might a student of CS ask? Here are some possibilities. (Remember they might be exhausting but they are not exhaustive.) What constitutes ÒpoetryÓ at a given time—How is it written? Who is allowed to write to it? What is it allowed to say or not to say? What words must it use? Must it avoid? How are those who write it paid or arenÕt they paid? Who publishes it and how is it published? (Remember: printing and publishing are not necessarily the same thing.) Who reads it and where? How do readers find out about it? Who criticizes/judges it?  How is it judged and where?  How does it survive and why?

Even though we are only scratching the proverbial surface of the interests and engagements of CS, there is a lot here to digest. I cannot promise mastery of the field by the end of the semester, but I do know but you will have deeper, more sophisticated understanding of the way you might approach the study of literature.

 

 

Texts: Ehrenreich Nickel and Dimed;  Klein, No Logo; Lewis,  The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; Rowling, Harry Potter and the SorcererÕs Stone; Schlosser, Fast Food Nation; Twain Tom Sawyer (Penguin)

 

Other readings will either be available online, in  ebooks that can be easily accessed through the GMU library catalog (During, The Cultural Studies Reader and Bobo et al, The Black Studies Reader) or in a course packet.

 

 

Class

                                                                      

Jan 28                                        Intro: Cultural Studies and Some Questions About Freedom

Feb 4                                           The (middle) class(es) talk about (the working) class(es)  Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed; NYT ÒOverviewÓ and ÒHealth,Ó from Class Matters                                        www.nytimes.com/indexes/2005/06/12/national/class/index.html

Feb 11                                        Commodity Fetishism/The Magic of Things: Marx, Selections from Capital; Zizek, from The Sublime Object of Ideology; Taussig, from The Devil and Commodity Fetishism 

Feb 18                                        Behind the Magic of Production: Schlosser, Fast Food America

Feb 25                                        Behind the Magic of Distribution: Klein, No Logo

March 3                                  Magical Children: Rawlings, Harry Potter and the SorcererÕs Stone                

March 10                              Spring Break

March 17                              Doing Things with/to Harry Potter: readings tba

March 24                              Reproducing Class(es): Gramsci, ÒHegemony;Ó Fiske, ÒCulture, Ideology and Interpellation;Ó (packet); Althusser, ÒIdeology and Ideological State ApparatusesÓ http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm

March 31 1                      Reproducing Subjects/Subjugation: Foucault, ÒPanopticism,Ó; Excerpt from ÒThe Eye of Power,Ó at http://foucault.info; ÒBody/PowerÓ at  http://www.thefoucauldian.co.uk/bodypower.htm

April 7                                       Intersections and Interpellations of Race and Gender and Sexuality: Butler, ÒSubjects of Sex/Gender/DesireÓ (CSR) Sedgwick, ÒAxiomaticÓ (CSR); Lott,  ÒRacial CrossdressingÉÓ (CSR); McBride, ÒCan the Queen Speak?Ó (BSR) DuCille, ÒDyes and DollsÓ (BSR)

April 14                                  Interpellating (British/English) Children: Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and t                                                                               he Wardrobe

                                                                                                            NO CLASS APRIL 21

April 28                                   Interpellating (American) Children: Twain, Tom Sawyer                                                         

May 5                                         Wrap                                                     Final Paper Due

 

 

 

 

 

Requirements

A working GMU email account: Your paper prompts will be sent by email. I also might need to reach you quickly or need to advise you about some quirk or change in the syllabus.

.Assignments: You will have to write a reaction paper of no more than 500 words to the weekly reading each week. This paper should have a thesis and cite evidence. My hope for this is that you will come in every week loaded for theoretical bear. Your final paper—a research paper of 10-12 pages—should be a spin-off of your favorite or most perplexing of these weekly papersIt should go without saying that you are expected to do all the assignments and your grade will reflect both your performance in class and your completion of all the assignments. If you find you cannot hand in an assignment on its due date, please make arrangements with me beforehand.

Attendance: This is a graduate so its health and success depend on active participation and regular attendance. Now, we all have real lives and multiple commitments, but if you anticipate missing more than two sessions, you should seriously consider NOT taking this course. If you cannot attend a session for whatever reason, please email me ahead of time.

Comportment: CS is both political and polemical. You will not agree with some of the positions that its theorists maintain and a few of you will not agree with all of the positions that its theorists maintain. You will not agree with positions that other students in the class may take, especially on touchy issues. Most of the issues in CS ar e touchy issues. We must therefore maintain civility. We are interested in inquiry, not in browbeating our opponents into compliance. Personal attacks will not be tolerated at any point for any reason.  If you do engage in such attacks, you will be asked to leave graciously but firmly.

Grading : The papers will constitute no less than 60 % of the grade. Class participation (which should be vigorous, if not impassioned) will count for the rest. Remember: You are responsible for your ignorance. If you have a question, ask it.  If youÕre scared to ask it in class, email me.  This is about education, not about competition.

 Plagiarism: I shouldnÕt have to talk about plagiarism, but it seems I must. If you present work as your own which was actually written by someone else (whether another student or a professional scholar), you are cheating. If you say something in a paper that you would not have said if you had not read Smith, even if you do not quote Smith word for word, then you need to footnote Smith (this includes sources from the Internet, by the way).  Be sure to familiarize youself with proper modes of documentation. (I prefer the Chicago Manual of Style, but feel free to use MLA style.) ANYONE WHO CITES, RELIES ON OR OTHERWISE REFERS TO THE WORK OF SOMEONE ELSE WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGING THIS FACT IN A FOOTNOTE WILL BE REFERRED TO THE HONOR COMMITTEE.