CULTURAL STUDIES 860

Globalization and Culture

Spring 2008

Robinson A 246

Wednesday 4.30

Professor Paul Smith

psmith5@gmu.edu

http://mason/gmu.edu/~psmith5

Office hours by appointment only--send email for times.

Phone contact via Cultural Studies office: x3-2851

REQUIRED TEXTS

Lee Artz and Yahya Kamalipour, The Globalization of Corporate Media Hegemony

(free on NetLibrary, via GMU library)

Mike Davis, Planet of Slums

Armand Mattelart, Networking the World 1794 - 2000

Kate Raworth, Trading Away Our Rights (Oxfam: Free Download)

(http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/papers/tradingaway.html)

Reading Packet - available at the bookstore under CULT 320

ASSESSMENT

1) Reading and writing assignment in schedule below, March 5^th; due by email

only before March 12^th

2) Term paper on topic to be agreed with me. Due by email only before May 12^th.

CLASS SCHEDULE

January 23

Introductions

January 30

Robins "Encountering Globalization" (reading packet)

Tomlinson, "Globalization and Cultural Identity" (reading packet)

Giddens, "The Globalizing of Modernity" (photocopy)

February 6

Tomlinson, Globalization and Culture. (Book on 2-hr reserve at Johnson Center)

February 13

Liechty, "Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex in Katmandu"

Watson, "McDonalds in Hong Kong"

Hutnyk, "The Nation Question: Fun^Da^Mental and the Deathening Silence"

February 20

Mattelart, Networking the World 1794-2000

Thompson, "Media and Modernity"

Thompson, "The Globalization of Communication"

February 27

Miller, "Hollywood and the World" (reading packet)

Forsyth, "Hollywood Reloaded"

Castells, "Information Technology and Global Capitalism"

March 5

No Class

Read: "Very Bombay: Contending with the Global in an Indian

Advertising Agency."

Write commentary on this text.

March 12

Spring Break

March 19

Artz and Kamalipour, The Globalization of Corporate Media Hegemony

March 26

Smith, "Tommy Hilfiger in the Age of Mass Customization" (on my website)

Howard, "Labor, History and Sweatshops in the New Global Economy" (reading packet)

Lynn, "Unmade in America"

Bonacich and Appelbaum, excerpts from Beyond the Label

April 2

Raworth, Trading Away our Rights

Steen, "Globalization and Gendered Inequality"

Bauman, "The Crisis of the Human Waste Disposal Industry"

Weiss, "The Racism of Globalization"

April 9

Davis, Planet of Slums

April 16

No Class

Attend the Cultural Studies annual program event:

"HOTSPOTS: Issues in Contemporary Globalization"

on alternatives and resistances to neo-liberal globalization

Meese Room, Mason Hall.

April 23

Zhao, "China's Integration into Global Capitalism"

Ross, excerpts from Fast Boat to China

April 30

Final class