Critical communication studies  
Prof. Gil Rodman Comm 8211
gbrodman@mindspring.com W 2:30-5:30p
612.626.7721 Fall 2006
office hours (253 Ford): W 11a-12n and by appointment 294 Ford

Course description and objectives

There are a lot of different “critical” territories scattered across the disciplinary terrain of Communication Studies and this seminar can’t (and doesn’t) pretend to cover all of them. Our major focal point this semester will be the various intellectual and political projects that travel under the banner of “cultural studies,” which is arguably one of the most important such “flavors” that critical communication studies takes these days.

The past decade or so has seen the “cultural studies” label used to describe an ever-expanding range of books, journals, conferences, courses, job descriptions, and academic programs. In spite (because?) of the widespread use of the term, there’s also widespread confusion as to just what “cultural studies” really is. From the very beginning, the range of work done in the name of cultural studies has been too diverse to allow for simple and straightforward definitions of the enterprise. While cultural studies isn’t completely unbounded, it also doesn’t have a clearly identifiable center: there is no single object of study, no body of theory, and no methodological paradigm that defines cultural studies completely.

Cultural studies’ inherent “fuzziness” places sharp limits on what we’ll be able to accomplish in less than four months. We won’t be able to examine cultural studies’ tangled and fractious history in its entirety, but we will trace out enough of that backstory to help make sense of cultural studies’ current shape and circumstances. We won’t be able to cover all of the issues and subjects that are prevalent in cultural studies today, though we will spend several weeks surveying some of the most important such concerns. And we won’t be able to map out cultural studies’ current trajectories with absolute precision, but we will engage the question of where cultural studies might -- and should -- head in the future. The best way to think of this course, then, is not so much as a source of definitive answers, but as an opportunity to wrestle with productive and important questions.

Readings

The following books are all available at the University Bookstore in Coffman Union.

There are also several dozen articles available as PDF files. [Reminder: official department policy does not allow students to use the copier in 270 Ford to print these PDFs. Sorry.]

Grading policy

Presumably, you’re enrolled in this course because you want to learn about cultural studies, and thus your primary motivation involves a critical engagement with the course material, rather than adding an(other) A to your transcript -- and that’s the way it should be. With this in mind, my default assumption when it comes to graduate-level grades is that it’s counter-productive to worry about how your work for this course translates into a letter grade. As of Day One, you begin the course with an A. And if you show up for all our class meetings, participate intelligently in our discussions (both in class and online), and complete the final research paper in satisfactory and timely fashion, you’ll keep that A. That being said, in cases where people are clearly slacking off, I reserve the right to go deeper into the alphabet when I submit final grades (and I’ve actually done so in the past). Under such unfortunate circumstances, your grade will be calculated using the following formula:

Attendance/participation 15%
Course blog 15%
Final research paper 70%

Attendance/participation

Our weekly meetings will be oriented around seminar-style discussions, rather than formal lectures. As such, your primary responsibility each week will be to show up prepared to contribute thoughtfully and productively to our conversations about the assigned readings. You are not expected to demonstrate perfect and immediate mastery of the issues raised by our readings -- questions and requests for clarification are more than welcome contributions to bring to the table -- but you are expected to be an active and regular participant in our ongoing dialogue. I’ll chime in often enough (and at enough length) that you’ll certainly get my take on the material at hand, but this course is not a spectator event for any of us.

Course blog

In addition to our Wednesday face-to-face meetings, we will conduct a significant amount of discussion and course business online via a course blog. Full details on how to access and contribute to the blog are available on a separate handout. Here’s a partial list of the ways we will use the course blog this semester:

Ideally, the course blog should function as a space that’s serious enough for people to share somewhat more extended thoughts on the course material than it may be possible to share in person, but simultaneously casual enough to allow people to post textual fragments, “in progress” ideas, and jovial interaction.

Final research paper

Your major writing assignment for this course is a 25-30 page research paper. Topics can (and will) vary, but your overall project should demonstrate a clear and significant relationship to cultural studies. Ideally, the finished product should be suitable -- at least in terms of its subject matter -- for submission to a conference or a refereed journal. Major deadlines for this project are:

Preliminary 1-on-1 meeting 27 Sep
1-2 page proposal 11 Oct
Full-length draft 6 Dec
In-class group workshopping 19 Dec (1:30-4:30p)

More details about this project are available on a separate handout.

Miscellaneous

As some of you may already know, I’m the founder/manager of a cultural studies listserv -- CULTSTUD-L -- that has more than 1700 subscribers from over 40 countries around the world. You’re more than welcome to join the listserv (and some of you are already on it), but are under no formal obligation to do so. If you’re interested, you should read the list’s FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) first to (1) find out how to subscribe and (2) learn the basic rules of conduct for the list. The FAQ is available online at:

http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/cultstud/

Reading/assignment schedule

For each class meeting below, I’ve arranged the readings in an order that should help you get the most out of the material. This is not to say that the first items listed are necessarily the only “must read” articles for any given week (and that the last items listed are somehow “optional”): simply that I’ve tried to sequence the readings so that you can more readily follow the historical trajectory of the various intellectual conversations and projects represented by the readings.

6 September -- Introduction and overview

13 September -- Defining cultural studies

20 September -- Historicizing and placing cultural studies

27 September -- Disciplining cultural studies
DEADLINE -- paper meeting

***also available in BIABH, but reading the D&D version minimizes the number of separate books you need to worry about this week

4 October -- Birmingham -- part 1

11 October -- Birmingham -- part 2
DEADLINE -- paper proposal

18 October -- Race, ethnicity, and nation

25 October -- Gender, sexuality, and feminism

1 November -- Popular culture, mass media, and entertainment

8 November -- Everyday life, lived experience, and cultural space

15 November -- Science, technology, and digital culture

22 November -- NO CLASS

29 November -- The university, cultural institutions, and pedagogy

6 December -- Public policy, public intellectuals, and the public sphere
DEADLINE -- full-length draft

13 December -- Cultural studies: Now and in the future

19 December (1:30-4:30p) -- Workshops for final papers

Reference list
(PDF readings only)