Learning Outcomes
COURSE OBJECTIVES
To understand the connections between communication and contemporary popular culture.
To improve students’ abilities to describe, interpret, and evaluate the popular culture(s) we encounter in our daily lives as well as their popular culture literacy.
To bolster critical thinking and analytical skills by identifying relevant issues, critically evaluating (audiovisual) texts, and articulating informed positions in a precise and nuanced manner.
To appreciate, evaluate, and question the complex ways in which familiar popular cultural artifacts make and re-make our (social) world.
Course Content (Syllabus)
Week 1 Introduction to Popular Culture
Week 2 The ‘culture and civilization’ tradition/ Culturalism
Week 3 High and Low Culture
Week 4 Consumer culture
Week 5 Participatory Cultures
Week 6 Gender and Sexuality in popular culture
Week 7 Feminisms
Week 8 Intercultural Communication
Week 9 Streaming Culture
Week 10 Fashion and Popular Culture
Week 11 Digital Media
Week 12 Music and Culture
Week 13 Review