Title of the course: Introduction to Cultural StudiesCourse ID:

Level of education: Academic semester: 2012-13-1

Professor’s name: Tímea Jablonczay, Phd Academic title:

Hours per semester: 30 Credits: 4

Exam: Pre-requisites:

Course Description and Learning Goals:

This course will introduce students to key works and concepts in cultural studies.The culture must be studied within social relations and system, so this study is bound up withthe study of society, politics and economics. The course deals with especially Stuart Hall’sconcept of representation, we explore the operation of representational system (visual andlinguistic). We examine the production and circulation of meaning through language andvisual codes mostly in relation to advertisements, the spectacle of the other, and the variousforms of discourses, image constructions. We will examine some research methods -semiotics, ideological textual analysis - in order to enhance conceptual skills. The course aims to understand:- how cultural meanings convey specific ideologies of gender, race, class, sexuality, nationsand other ideological dimensions- how media culture articulates dominant values, political ideologies-how relations of power are “encoded” in cultural texts-how people can resist the dominant encoded meanings.

Assessment:- Active participation - Reading chapters on the assigned topic is essential before each class meeting.- One page, almost weekly reaction papers. A reaction paper is max 1 page long and contains a brief (about 3 short paragraph) summary of the readings – a synthesis of all the articles if more than one reading is assigned- as well as a few analytical/critical observations (another 2 short paragraphs). Reaction papers are due in hard copy in class. - Essay or seminar presentation

Books:

Stuart Hall: Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. The OpenUniversity, 1997Lutz, Catherine A., and Jane L. Collins, Reading National Geographic. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1993.Hall, Stuart. "Encoding/decoding." Culture, Media, Language. Eds. Stuart Hall, et al. London:Hutchinson/CCCS, 1980. 128-39.Foucault, Michel. "What is An Author?" Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1977. 113-38.