Critical communication studies Syllabus
Comm 8211 Fall 2008
Prof. Gil Rodman  
rodman@umn.edu / 626.7721  
office hours (253 Ford): TuTh 10-11:15a, W 10-11:30a, and by appointment  

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. This semester, our focus will be on 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.

As a label, "cultural studies" has come 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 subjects that are prevalent in cultural studies today, though we will spend several weeks surveying some of the most significant of those issues. 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.


Grading policy

Presumably, you're enrolled in this course because you genuinely want to learn about cultural studies, and so your presence is motivated by something other than the desire to add an(other) A to your transcript -- and that's the way it should be. With this in mind, my default assumption is that it's counter-productive for me to make you worry about how your work for this course translates into a letter grade. As of Day One, you begin the course with an A. If you show up for all our class meetings, participate intelligently in our discussions (both in class and online), and complete the required writing assignment(s) 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. Under such unfortunate circumstances, your grade will be calculated using the following formula:

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

Readings

Our required book -- John Storey (ed.), What Is Cultural Studies? -- is available at the University Bookstore in Coffman Union. The rest of our readings will be made available in PDF format. [Reminder: department policy does not allow students to use the copier in 270 Ford to print these PDFs. Sorry.]


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 our conversations -- 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 our readings, but this course is not a spectator event for any of us.


Course blog

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 as:

Ideally, the course blog should function as a space that's serious enough for people to share 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.


Written assignment(s)

Choose one of the following two options:

(1) One 6250-7500 word 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 as follows:

Preliminary 1-on-1 meeting 30 Sep
250-500 word proposal 7 Oct
Full-length draft 9 Dec
In-class group workshopping 17 Dec (1:30-3:30p)

(1) Three 2000-3000 word critical response papers. You are free to write on whatever topic(s) you like from the assigned readings associated with each due date. These essays should be thoughtful, critical engagements with the course material in question. They should not be mere summaries of the readings or of our in-class/online conversations. Due dates (with associated readings) are as follows:

Paper #1 (9 Sep-7 Oct) 14 Oct
Paper #2 (14 Oct-4 Nov) 11 Nov
Paper #3 (11 Nov-9 Dec) 17 Dec

Miscellaneous

As some of you may already know, I'm the founder/manager of CULTSTUD-L: a cultural studies listserv that has more than 2000 subscribers from over 40 countries around the world. You're welcome to join the listserv, 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 here: http://www.comm.umn.edu/~grodman/cultstud/


Reading/assignment schedule

2 September -- Introduction and overview

9 September -- Defining cultural studies

16 September -- Historicizing and placing cultural studies

23 September -- Disciplining cultural studies

30 September -- Birmingham -- part 1
DEADLINE -- research paper meeting

7 October -- Birmingham -- part 2
DEADLINE -- research paper proposal

14 October -- Race, ethnicity, and nation
DEADLINE -- short paper #1

21 October -- Gender, sexuality, and feminism

28 October -- Popular culture, mass media, and entertainment -- part 1

4 November -- Popular culture, mass media, and entertainment -- part 2

11 November -- Everyday life, lived experience, and cultural space
DEADLINE -- short paper #2

18 November -- Science, technology, and digital culture

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

2 December -- Public policy, public intellectuals, and the public sphere

9 December -- Cultural studies: Now and in the future
DEADLINE -- full-length draft of research paper

17 December -- Workshop for final research papers (1:30-3:30p)
DEADLINE -- short paper #3


Reference list
(PDF readings only)