Fall 2012

Women, Gender and Popular Culture

Formerly listed as: SWAG-08

Faculty

Aneeka A. Henderson (Section 01)

Description

We will examine some of the most challenging issues about women and gender in our contemporary postmodern world, through the lens of popular culture.  We will investigate representations of women in popular and material culture in the U.S. through music, television, blogs, fiction, and advertisements.  As we interrogate some of the major theories in cultural criticism, we will use our own expertise as consumers of popular culture as an entryway for exploring the diverse roles mass-mediated popular culture plays in our lives.  Several questions shape the syllabus and provide a framework for approaching the course materials: How do familiar aspects of popular culture reveal broader cultural concerns about women and gender?  In what ways does popular culture blur the boundaries between the highbrow and the lowbrow?  What kinds of fears or anxieties about women and gender does popular culture elicit and how do we negotiate those anxieties?  Expectations include diligent reading, active participation, one presentation, two exams, and two writing projects.

Limited to 25 students.  Fall semester.  Visiting Professor Henderson.

WAGS 105 - L/D

Section 01
Tu 01:00 PM - 02:20 PM CHAP 101
Th 01:00 PM - 02:20 PM CHAP 101

ISBN Title Publisher Author(s) Comment Book Store Price
Reality Bites Back Seal Press Jennifer L. Pozner TBD
Interrogating Postfeminism Duke University Press Yvonne Tasker & Diane Negra TBD
Prophets of the Hood Duke University Press Imani Perry TBD
Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Reader Sage Publications Gail Dines TBD
Gender and the Media Polity Rosalind Gill TBD

Offerings

2024-25: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2019, Spring 2021