Prof. Derek Nystrom (derek.nystrom@mcgill.

ca) Fall 2016

Office: rm. 301, 3475 Peel MW(F) 10:35-11:25am
Office hours: T 10:30am-noon, W 1:00-2:30pm, and by appointment Leacock 232

ENGL 275: Introduction to Cultural Studies

Course Description: This course, a required course for Cultural Studies majors and
minors, will introduce various critical efforts to theorize the aesthetics, semiotics, and
politics of popular culture over the past century. Beginning with a few crucial theoretical
touchstones (Marx, Freud, structuralism), we will survey such movements as the
Frankfurt School, the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, critical
race studies, queer theory, affect theory, and various feminisms, as they each formulate
critical frameworks to explain how popular culture works. Along the way, we will
consider the following questions: What does the “popular” in “popular culture” mean?
Does the distinction between “high” and “low” culture have a political dimension?
Furthermore, when we do cultural studies, whose culture should be investigated? What is
the role of the critic? Finally, how can we grasp the meanings of popular culture: by
examining the texts themselves, or by studying the audiences’ interpretations and uses of
these texts? Note: Much of the reading for the course will, of necessity, be difficult; you
may need to reread many essays a few times before you fully grasp their arguments.
Therefore, it is imperative that you complete the readings before attending lecture.

Format: Lectures from 10:35 to 11:25am on Monday and Wednesday; weekly TA-led
conferences (except during the first two weeks of the term, during which there will be
lectures on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with no conferences). Conference
attendance is mandatory. Registration for conferences will open on Monday, Sept. 19th.

Required Texts: Roland Barthes, Mythologies (either Hill and Wang editions)
Course pack
Essays on class myCourses page

Evaluation: Two essays: the first worth 15% of the final grade, the second worth 30%
Midterm reading quiz: 15%
Final exam: 25%
Participation in conferences: 15%

Late Papers, Academic Integrity, and Other Course Policies

Except in cases of documented medical illness or family emergency, you must turn in
your papers in hard copy form at the beginning of class on the day that they are due.
Late papers will be docked 2/3 of a letter grade (i.e., a B+ becomes a B-) for each day
(not each class period) that they are late. All late papers must be emailed to the
professor’s McGill email address.

McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the
meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism, and other academic offences under
the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures.

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(See www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/ for more information). Cases of plagiarism will
be reported to the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts, in keeping with University
policy.

In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course
have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded.

As the instructor of this course, I endeavor to provide an inclusive learning environment.

However, if you experience barriers to learning in this course, do not hesitate to discuss
them with me and the Office for Students with Disabilities (http://www.mcgill.ca/osd/;
514-398-6009).

Any changes to the syllabus, and other important announcements, will be posted on the
class myCourses page, as well as announced in lecture.

Course Schedule (All readings are in the course pack unless otherwise indicated)
F 9/2 Introduction to the course

Theoretical Foundations: Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and Structuralism

M 9/5 Labour Day; no class
W 9/7 Karl Marx, excerpts from The Communist Manifesto, “Preface from A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” and The German
Ideology
F 9/9 Marx continued

M 9/12 Sigmund Freud, “Introduction,” “The Dream Work,” and

“Some Analyses of Sample Dreams”
W 9/14 Freud, “The Development of the Libido and the Sexual Organizations”
F 9/16 Roland Barthes, “Preface to the 1970 Edition” and “Preface to the 1957
Edition” (from Mythologies)

M 9/19 Barthes, “Myth Today” (Mythologies); conference enrollment opens

(Tuesday, Sept. 20th is the add/drop deadline)
W 9/21 Barthes, “In the Ring” (or “The World of Wrestling”), “Toys,” “Wine and
Milk,” “Plastic,” “The Great Family of Man,” and “Lost Continent”
(Mythologies)
(TA-led conferences begin this week: Thurs., 9/22 and Friday, 9/23)

M 9/26 Michel Foucault, “The Repressive Hypothesis”

Cultural Studies before “Cultural Studies”: Mass Culture Theory and its Critics
W 9/28 Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry:
Enlightenment as Mass Deception”

M 10/3 Andreas Huyssen, “Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism’s Other”

W 10/5 Richard Dyer, “Entertainment and Utopia”

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M 10/10 Thanksgiving holiday; no class
W 10/12 FIRST PAPER DUE AT START OF CLASS
Raymond Williams, “Conclusion” from Culture & Society: 1780-1950

The Role of Culture Revisited: Hegemony and Ideological State Apparatuses

M 10/17 Raymond Williams, “Hegemony”
Dick Hebdige, “From Culture to Hegemony”
W 10/19 Louis Althusser, “Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses”

On the “Popular” in Popular Culture: Subcultures and Cultural Capital

M 10/24 Stuart Hall, “Notes on Deconstructing the ‘Popular’” (myCourses)
W 10/26 MIDTERM READING QUIZ (location TBA)

M 10/31 Dick Hebdige, “The Function of Subculture”

W 11/2 Carl Wilson, “Let’s Talk About Who’s Got Bad Taste”
(Recommended: “Let’s Talk About Taste,” on myCourses)

Resisting Readers
M 11/7 John Fiske, “Popular Discrimination”
W 11/9 Janice Radway, “Reading is Not Eating” (myCourses)

Popular Audiences and the Position of the Critic

M 11/14 Laura Kipnis, “(Male) Desire and (Female) Disgust: Reading Hustler”
W 11/16 Constance Penley, “Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular
Culture”

M 11/21 Lisa Nakamura, “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization
of Labor in World of Warcraft” (myCourses)

Madonna, Elvis, and the Transmission of Cultural Meaning

W 11/23 Cindy Patton, “Embodying Subaltern Memory: Kinesthesia and the
Problematics of Gender and Race”

M 11/28 Eric Lott, “All the King’s Men: Elvis Impersonators and White Working-
Class Masculinity”

Feelings and their Structures: Affect Theory and Cultural Studies

W 11/30 Sara Ahmed, “Affective Economies” (myCourses)

M 12/5 Raymond Williams, “Structures of Feeling”

SECOND PAPER DUE

Final exam: Date and time TBA. Please note that final exams will be held from Dec. 7 to
Dec. 20. Please do not make your winter break travel plans until the final exam schedule
has been posted. (According to Senate regulations, instructors are not permitted to make
special arrangements for final exams.)