Cultural Studies (CULT)

Cultural Studies

802 Histories of Cultural Studies (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program, to M.A. "feeder" track, or permission of instructor. This course required of all students. Provides a historical survey of the principal works and theories of cultural studies. Offers an overview of the contemporary situation of cultural studies and assesses the possibilities for its future development.

806 Research Seminar in Cultural Studies (3:3:0). Prerequisites: Admission to program and CULT 802. Introduction to research methods in cultural studies. Specific topics vary.

808 Student/Faculty Colloquium in Cultural Studies (1:1:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Forum for the presentation of original and current research in cultural studies. Students register for one credit per semester over a three-semester period.

810 Culture and Political Economy (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Designed to survey many of the social science and humanities classics that relate cultural production and consumption to underlying political economic conditions: from Marx to Lukacs to the Frankfurt School, from work in semiotic neo-Marxism to productivist theories of power indebted to Foucault, and taking in such diverse sources as Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Harvey, Jameson, Mauss, Mill, Polanyi, Sahlins, A. Smith, and Weber.

812 Visual and Performance Culture (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Examines theories of visual culture, covering such topics as film, video, visual arts, music, display, ritual, performance, performativity, theories of the aesthetic, as well as their production, consumption, and reception. Key readings from theorists such as Adorno, Artaud, Benjamin, Brecht, Bryson, Doane, Fiske, Heath, Marcuse, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre.

814 Gender and Sexuality (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Interrogates the various ways in which the notion of gender functions both in the maintenance and in the analysis of issues of social and cultural power. Examines conflicting notions of sexuality and their role in cultural signification. At the same time, the course seeks to explicate the relation between sexuality and gender.

816 Science/Technology (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Considers theories of and major debates about the culture of science, the social construction of nature, and the effects of technology on modern cultural formskey concepts for many areas of cultural studies. Readings from such theorists as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Feyerabend, Bahro, Haraway, and Latour.

818 Social Institutions (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Considers theories of institutional practice and social structures, from Max Weber to Michel Foucault. Covers such key topics for cultural studies as prisons, bureaucracies, museums, schools, political parties, and social movements.

820 After Colonialism: Race, Ethnicity, Nationalism (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Surveys the making of racial, ethnic, caste, and national identities in colonial contexts; the roles of scientific racism in both "periphery" and "core" sites; the subsequent history of race, ethnic, national identities and conflicts; classical and contemporary texts by authors such as DuBois, Fanon, Gilroy, and Spivak; and the particular place of issues of national, racial, and ethnic identities in contemporary cultural studies.

860 Special Topics in Cultural Studies (1-3:1-3:0). Prerequisite: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Specialized interdisciplinary topics in cultural theory and analysis. Content varies. May be repeated.

870 Directed Readings (3:0:0). Intensive reading course aimed at developing comprehensive coverage for specific fields as agreed on in consultation with student's advisors. May be repeated.

880 Independent Study (1-3:0:0). Reading and research on a specific topic, resulting in a written project. May be repeated.

998 Doctoral Dissertation Proposal (1-6:0:0). Work on a research proposal that forms the basis for the doctoral dissertation. Students enrolling in 998 must have completed all cultural studies course work, fulfilled the foreign language requirement, and passed the comprehensive examination. Course may be repeated once for credit. Graded S/NC.

999 Doctoral Dissertation (1-12:0:0). Prerequisites: Completion of CULT 998 and public presentation of the dissertation proposal. Doctoral dissertation research and writing under the direction of the student's dissertation committee. Graded S/NC.