AMST3950: Gender and Popular Culture
OSU-Tulsa Spring 2003
| What does it mean to be a man or woman in contemporary American society? Where do our ideals of masculinity and femininity derive from? How have these ideals changed over time, and how are they related to issues of biological difference? This course will attempt to answer such questions through cultural analysis. We will begin with the assumption that gender is not necessarily the same as biological sex. Rather, gender is the socially constructed set of meanings that we make of biological difference. We will undertake an historical analysis of how our ideas of masculinity and femininity have come about and how they have been modified over time by examining popular cultural texts and practices in several areas: children’s culture, sport, music, film, TV, and print culture (2 novels, one from the 50s and one contemporary). Some of our examples will be drawn from historical texts and some will be contemporary. This arrangement will help us see how our ideas of masculinity and femininity have shifted over time and are, therefore, relatively unstable. Acknowledging the instability of our gender categories will, hopefully, enable us to demystify and challenge some of the connections between gender and power that shape contemporary social life in problematic ways. |
Required Texts | Course Requirements | Course Schedule
Course Policies and Requirements
| Exams (1 Mid-Term, 1 Final): Exams will cover the course readings, lectures, and discussions in equal measure. Check the course schedule to determine exam dates. Make-up exams will be given only in cases of documented emergency and only if I am notified of said emergency on the scheduled date of the exam. Research Paper: You will write a 7-10 page research paper analyzing the relationship between a cultural object or practice of your choosing and issues of gender identity construction. Exact details will be forthcoming (check the course schedule for the due date). On-Line Response Papers: This class will utilize an on-line Discussion Board to enhance reading comprehension. Each week there will be a brief writing assignment related to the readings posted on the discussion board for this course. You will be required to complete at least 10 of these assignments over the course of the semester, but you may choose which 10. |
Do
all assigned reading before you come to class on the day it is
listed in the schedule. |
| 1/16 | Introduction to Course Video:
Is it a Boy or a Girl? |
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| 1/23 | Read: | *Zipes,
Grimm's Firytales, ”Tale about the boy who went
forth to learn what fear was”
*Zipes, Grimm's Fairytales, "Iron Hans"
*Robert
Bly, “The Pillow and the Key” from Iron John
*Anne Sexton, "Iron Hans" *Zipes,
Grimm's Fairytales "Cinderella
Roald
Dahl, "Cinderella"
*Anne
Sexton, "Cinderella"
*Maeve
Binchy, "Cinderella Re-Examined"
*Angela
Carter, "Ashputtle: or, The Mother’s Ghost" *Simone DeBeauvoir, from The Second Sex |
| 1/30
|
Read: |
*Stuart Hall “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular”
*Susan
Willis, “Gender as Commodity”
*Karen
Klugman, “Bad Hair Day for GI Joe” Video: Barbie Nation |
Back |
||
| 2/6 | Read: | Susan
Douglas, Where the Girls Are, Intro and Chapters 1-2 Video:
David Halberstam's The Fifties (vol. 3); Manchurian
Candidate |
| 2/13 | Video:
The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit |
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| 2/20 | Read: | Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit Midterm Due |
Back |
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| 2/27 | Read: | Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are Chaps. 3-5 |
| 3/6 | Read: | *Robert
Walser, “Forging Masculinity: Heavy Metal Sounds & Images
of Gender” |
Back |
||
Case Studies in Popular Culture II: Sports & Gender |
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| 3/13 | Read: | Alan
Klein (chapters 1-2, 4, 6-9)
Video: Pumping Iron I & II;
Chyna’s Diary (MTV) |
| 3/20 | Spring Break: No Class | |
Back |
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| 3/27 | Read: | *Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Video:
Hitchcock selections |
| 4/3 | Read: | *Carol Clover, “Her Body/Him Self” Video: Halloween or Texas Chainsaw Massacre II |
Back |
||
| 4/10 | Read: | Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are Chaps. 6-12 & Epilogue |
| 4/17 | Read: |
* Frederic Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” Video: Miami Vice |
Back |
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| 4/24 | Read: | *Alexander Doty, “The Sissy Boy, the Fat Ladies, and the Dykes: Queerness and/as Gender in Pee-Wee's World” Video: Pee Wee’s Playhouse Essay
Due |
| 5/1 | Read: | Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats |
Back |
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| 5/8 | Final | |
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