Reading & Composition

In this course we will focus on the intersections of voice, movement, music, and lyrics within mediatized popular culture performance. We will examine how film, youtube, mobile phone, animation, and music video re-construct, translate, and transform the bodies, images, sounds, and texts of performers through media techniques. Central to this study is the foregrounding of women performers from different cultures from the 20th and 21st centuries. We will study the impact of issues of discrimination, prejudice, and censorship due to racial, gender, class, and sexuality intolerances and prescriptions. Our research will consider how state, religious, and/or societal constraints limit and repress creative expression through direct subjugation to strict personal censorship and in some cases persecution. A special feature of our course is not only culture-specific performances but also how pop star performances move across cultures and temporalities, which will challenge our assumptions concerning popular culture and its powerful influence of sight and sound spectacle in different contexts.

The main methodology of the course with its emphasis on writing will involve "close readings" of pop star performance with analysis informed by the pop star's cultural and social/political contexts. To do this, we will use specific theories from performance and media studies, along with specifically culture-based histories, theories, and practices of media, sound, image, movement and character/narrative production. We will focus on concise description and application of theory to the performance and media examples. We will development these skills through a variety of essay forms. These will include short descriptive and analytic essays, argument forms with supportive close readings, a collective critical essay, and a research essay. This is not a lecture course. Every class is a participatory learning experience, which requires individual and collective responsibility and risk taking.

Critical reading is central to this course. Everyone must read and prepare the articles assigned for each section, day, or week. You must bring your computer to class to refer to the readings and media examples. Your mobile phone is NOT a substitute for your computer. You must be prepared with examples from the texts and the mediated performances. Readings will sometimes be divided among small groups or individuals, who will have the responsibility to lead the discussion of the assigned article and to prepare for the discussion with examples from the article's performances from websites and youtube or our film streaming site.

Course Objectives

1 To review and practice a variety of writing forms and styles, which can be applied to present and future academic work.

2 To engage in writing as a creative and critical process

3 To practice critical thinking in visual, performance, mediated, and textual contexts

4 To apply critical theory to an artwork and create an argument for your application of that theory.

4 To become aware of communication as an interdisciplinary and intercultural activity

5 To gain a greater knowledge of the significance of popular cultures and the significance of artistic interventions in a variety of cultural contexts and the intersectional relationship of popular culture, media, and politics

6 To create your own sense of how written, performed, and visual forms shape thought and behavior