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Media and Cultural StudiesCOURSES 110 TEXTS AND POWER: FOUNDATIONS OF CULTURAL STUDIES This course introduces students to the intellectual roots and contemporary applications of cultural studies, including critical media studies, focusing on the theoretical bases for analyses of power and meaning in production, texts, and reception. It includes primary readings in anti-racist, feminist, modern, postmodern, and queer cultural and social theory, and compares them to traditional approaches to the humanities. Designed as preparation for intermediate and advanced work in cultural studies, the course is writing intensive, with special emphasis on developing skills in critical thinking and scholarly argumentation and documentation. Completion of or enrollment in HMCS 110 is the prerequisite for majoring in humanities and media and cultural studies. Every semester. (4 credits) 114 NEWS REPORTING AND WRITING This class offers an introduction to writing, reporting, and news-gathering techniques associated with newspaper journalism. Readings, lectures, and discussions are applied to the coverage of events on the Macalester campus as well as to major events in the outside community—the 2008 elections, for example. The class typically meets with Twin Cities journalists and may serve as a springboard to internship opportunities in the media. It is taught by a Macalester graduate with more than 20 years of experience as a reporter and editor at the Star Tribune. Every year. (4 credits) 126 LOCAL MEDIA INSTITUTIONS This course is an analysis of the major forces that determine media production and distribution. Topics include the political economy of media, ownership and government regulation, systems of power within media organizations, and the influence of advertisers on news and programming practices as well as on media access and diversity. Students will examine contemporary commercial media practices and structures in light of comparative, historical, and potential alternatives. Every year. (4 credits) 128 FILM ANALYSIS AND VISUAL CULTURE This course explores the nature of visual representation, building from a focus on the formal analysis of cinema (the basic features of film form and style) and developing tools of visual textual analysis applicable to all visual media (photography, television, digital and graphic representations of all kinds). We start by concentrating on the basic features of cinematic form: narrative and non-narrative structure, the shot, editing, sound, and the construction of film style. Students will gain a familiarity with cinematic elements and vocabulary, and practice in formalist critical analysis. Students will also make an abstract video. Following an introduction to cultural studies, we will apply the tools and insights of film analysis to various studies of visual representation, in film and other forms of visual culture, including: television, photography, journalism, advertising, and art. The primary goal of the course is to develop a set of analytical tools that can be used to illuminate all forms of visual representation and their aesthetic, cultural, and social implications. Every semester. (4 credits) 202 GLOBAL MEDIA INDUSTRIES (Same as International Studies 202) We view the world and its peoples primarily through the “consciousness industry” of the media. As such, the way it is organized vitally impacts how we understand the world and our place in it. When did global media industries emerge, how are they organized, who owns them, and how have they transformed? In this course, we will investigate historical and contemporary forces of media production, explore theories for understanding the role of media in society, as well as consider paradigms that contest both practices and discourses of media globalization. Offered 2009–2010. (4 credits) 210 VIDEO AS ACTIVIST MEDIUM This course focuses on the rich political possibilities of video as intervention, propaganda, prank, advocacy, technique, educational tool, act of witness, subversive art practice, legal or physical defense strategy, etc. We will examine the politics of access, alternative and underground means of production and distribution, and strategies for collective process. The course will trace a history of radical video, from the initial use of the Porta Pak in the 1960s through the development of video collectives, the establishment of public access television, AIDS activist video, indigenous cultural preservation efforts, culture jamming and tactical media actions, and recent web & cell developments. Coursework will include screenings, readings, writing, in-class presentations, and critique. There will be various class trips to community video organizations in the Twin Cities, and individual students are expected to undertake significant research in an issue of their choice. (4 credits) 211 ACTIVIST VIDEO PRACTICUM This practicum focuses on video production in the context of activist video and tactical media. Through exercises, group and individual video production projects, critique, and community involvement, we will investigate strategies for politically motivated media production. Basic video shooting, lighting, sound recording and editing will be taught, with an emphasis on sharpening criticality and utilizing technology for maximum political or social efficacy. As their final projects, students will choose a political or social issue at any scale of local to global, and employ video as an activist strategy. No production experience is necessary. (2 credits) 212 ARTISTS’ AND EXPERIMENTAL VIDEO This course will integrate history, theory, and practice in a critical examination of experimental and artists’ video as an art form, political tool, and social process. The course will be structured around various key issues, including portraiture and autobiography, appropriation and collage, assertions or representations of identity, the presence of the maker and reflexivity, and conceptual, feminist, performative, and structuralist approaches. Art video’s relationships to experimental film, gallery and museum exhibition, and television will be considered. Coursework will include readings, screenings, writing, critique, and visual analysis. Video installation and other work not available in the classroom will be viewed in gallery and museum contexts around the Twin Cities. Every year. (4 credits) 213 EXPERIMENTAL VIDEO PRACTICUM This practicum class focuses on video production in the context of artists’ and experimental video. Through individual video production projects and extensive critique, students will develop their own individual media production process. Basic video shooting, lighting, sound recording, and editing will be taught, with the emphasis being on developing aesthetic, analytic, critical and conceptual acuity through an integration of practice and theory. No production experience is necessary. (2 credits) 247 DOCUMENTARY FILM AND VIDEO This course explores the history and theory of documentary practices in film and video: the epistemological issues and critical debates surrounding documentary attempts to depict and/or comment on “reality,” the implications of cinematic technique and style for documentary representation and function, and the place of documentary representation in social, political and cultural discourses about nation, race, gender, sexuality, and class. The course integrates critical readings on documentary history and theory and viewings and discussions of relevant documentary films and videos. Recommended prerequisite: Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 128, Film Analysis and Visual Culture. (4 credits) 248 HISTORY OF FILM, 1893–1941 This course provides an overview of the history of film up through the release of Citizen Kane, examining aesthetic, industrial, social, and theoretical topics in a variety of national and cultural contexts. Discussions, lectures, and screenings emphasize commercial and avant-garde styles and their determinants. What is the style now referred to as the “classical Hollywood cinema?” Why did it materialize? What alternatives were there? The course explores issues of racism and gender as well as connections between the history of film and the modernization of European and U.S. culture. Several papers are required. Prerequisite: sophomore status or permission of instructor. Recommended prerequisite: Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 128, Film Analysis and Visual Culture. Alternate years. (4 credits) 249 HISTORY OF FILM SINCE 1941 This course provides an overview of the history of film from the early 1940s, examining aesthetic, industrial, social, and theoretical topics in a variety of national and cultural contexts. Discussions, lectures, and screenings emphasize international commercial and alternative styles and their determinants. Why and how did alternative styles develop against and within the Hollywood system? The course explores issues of racism and gender as well as connections between the history of film and postwar transformations, with particular attention to the effects on filmmaking of the Cold War in the United States and of post colonial struggles in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Several papers are required. Prerequisite: sophomore status or permission of instructor. Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 248, Film History, 1893–1941, is not a prerequisite, but students who have completed that course will be encouraged to engage in independent research. Recommended prerequisite: Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 128, Film Analysis and Visual Culture. Alternate years. (4 credits) 256 MASS CULTURE UNDER COMMUNISM (Same as Russian Studies 256) The politics and sociology of Soviet Russian culture from the October Revolution to the fall of communism. For each period in Soviet history, changes in the production and consumption of culture will be considered with specific examples to be discussed. Topics dealt with in the course include the role of mass media in society, popular participation in “totalitarian” societies, and culture as a political tool. Popular films, newspapers and magazines, songs, radio and TV programs, etc., will serve to analyze the policies that inspired them and the popular reactions (both loyal and dissenting) they evoked. No prerequisites. Taught in English. Alternate years. (4 credits) 286 MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES OF LATIN AMERICA (Same as International Studies 286 and Latin American Studies 286) This course explores cultural and media industries and texts - including folktales, art, performance, sport, film, and television - within their socio-political and historical context in Latin America. Organized around case studies that will allow us to apply learned cultural theories and methodologies to specific texts and historical moments, this class is imagined as a cultural studies "laboratory" in which we will collectively investigate varied topics in the field. No prerequisites. Offered every year. (4 credits) 315 GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND FILM (Same as Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 320) This course explores a variety of critical approaches to the representation of gender and sexuality in film and video, including psychoanalytic feminist film theory and criticism, gay and lesbian studies, queer theory, narrative analysis, ideological critique and cultural studies of gender and sexuality in relation to race, nation, and class. How have social constructs about gender and sexuality been promulgated and/or contested in film and video within both mainstream and avant-garde contexts of cultural production? How have these constructs functioned to uphold and/or challenge other forms of social stratification or privilege? In asking these questions, the course considers a wide range of issues, including drag, camp, spectatorship, identity and identification, the gaze, assimilation, social change, body politics, realism, and pornography. Written work emphasizes the close analysis of film texts. Prerequisites: sophomore standing and previous experience with one of the following fields: women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, cultural studies and/or media studies, or permission of the instructor. Alternate years. (4 credits) 322 CULTURE AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM (Same as Latin American Studies 322 and International Studies 322) From the colonial sugar plantations of the Caribbean and new continental tastes for sweets, to Ford's mass production lines and Fordist mass consumption, to Sony's multinationally produced video technology and Sonyism's transnational networks of information societies, the worlds of capitalism and culture have been closely intertwined. This class will study forms of global economic exchange, and their associated systems of international relations, cultural texts, and popular resistances. No prerequisites. Offered every year. (4 credits) 331 RACIAL FORMATION, CULTURE AND U.S. HISTORY (Same as American Studies 331 and History 331) This interdisciplinary course will employ the methodologies of cultural and media studies within an historical framework to ask: What roles did “race” (the presence of diverse races; the relationships among those groups of people; the construction and representation of racial identities; the linking of material privileges and power to racial locations) play in the development of the United States? How have relationships of class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality been linked to “race”? How has “race” been a site of struggle between groups? How is the present a product of historical experiences? Our coursework will rely on reading historical studies, theory, cultural analysis, and memoirs, and on viewing and analyzing cultural performances and films. This course is designed for students with experience in history, cultural studies, African American studies and/or American studies. Alternate years. (4 credits) 334 CULTURAL STUDIES AND THE MEDIA (Same as American Studies 334) An overview of contemporary approaches to media as culture, a determining as well as determined sphere in which people make sense of the world, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender, identity, and social inequality. Students develop tools for analyzing media texts and accounts of audience responses derived from the international field of cultural studies and from the social theory on which it draws. Analysis emphasizes specificity of media texts, including advertisements, films, news reports, and television shows. Experience in cooperative discussion, research, and publication. Prerequisite: Humanities, Media and Cultural Studies 110, or permission of instructor. Every year. (4 credits) 354 BLACKNESS IN THE MEDIA (Same as American Studies 354) This course examines mainstream and alternative systems of African American representation in the media from the 1820s to the 1960s, including race records, race movies, the Black press, Black video, and Black appeal radio. It also examines the way Blackness is constructed in the media today, including the role of new media (such as cable and the Internet); new corporate formations (such as FOX, UPN, and BET), and new forms of representation (such as representations that reject the Black-White binary). Prerequisite: one of the following: an introduction to African American studies course, or Texts and Power: Foundations of Cultural Studies (Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 110), or permission of instructor. Every year. (4 credits) 355 ADVANCED JOURNALISM: ELECTRONIC This course involves writing and production of news, feature, and documentary stories for radio, television, and news media. The course stresses effective script writing and the development of a strong sense of journalistic ethics in an electronic environment. Emphasis is placed on frequent visits with practicing journalists and policy makers, on-site visits to electronic newsrooms, and field news assignments on campus and throughout the Twin Cities. Students will produce video, audio, and Internet stories. The course also examines the changing role of the media and the impact of electronic media and broadcast journalists on politics, government, education, and the legal system. Taught by a 20-year veteran print and broadcast journalist and former U.S. Senate press secretary. Prerequisite: News Reporting and Writing (114) or permission of instructor. Alternate years. (4 credits) 357 ADVANCED JOURNALISM: PRINT In-depth reporting and writing of news, feature, and opinion pieces for newspapers and magazines. This course stresses effective writing and editing and the development of a strong sense of journalistic ethics. Emphasis is placed on field reporting on campus and throughout the community, on-site visits to newspaper newsrooms, and frequent discussions with practicing journalists, writers, and policy makers. Students will examine the changing role of print media and the impact of media and journalists on culture, politics, government, education, the legal system, and the community. Prerequisite: News Reporting and Writing (114) or permission of instructor. Alternate years. (4 credits) 376 CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY AND THE MEDIA Studies of the contributions critical social theory has made to research oriented toward democratic communication. Class discussion evaluates the social uses of theories and probes assumptions and values embedded within them. A research paper allows each student to examine one theory or theoretical issue in detail. Prerequisite: Texts and Power: Foundations of Cultural Studies (Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 110), or permission of instructor. Alternate years. (4 credits) 488 ADVANCED TOPICS SEMINAR In the capstone seminar, students working on an independent project in line with the theme of the seminar share their scholarship, integrating what they have learned in the major, emphasizing knowledge gained in their focus area, as well as presenting their work at a concluding mini-conference. The capstone experience involves close analysis of cultural artifacts that examine at a higher level issues first raised in the introductory course. The department plans to offer two seminars every year, at least one in media studies, enabling students to select the seminar most relevant to their intellectual development. In exceptional cases, students with sufficient preparation may take the seminar prior to their senior year. Students may take more than one senior Seminar (488) as long as content varies. Prerequisite: Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 110 (Texts and Power: Foundations of Cultural Studies), or permission of instructor. Recommended prerequisite for film studies seminars: Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies 128, Film Analysis and Visual Culture. Non-majors are welcome if they have taken 110 or a comparable course. Recent seminar topics have included: Image/Text: Metaphor, Myth and Power; Advanced Film Analysis; Advanced Studies in War and Media; Postmodernism, Identity and the Media; Whiteness and the Media; Advanced Queer Media. Every semester. (4 credits) 604 TUTORIAL Closely supervised individual or small group study for advanced students on a subject not available through regular catalog offerings. Every semester. (1–4 credits) 614 INDEPENDENT PROJECT For the advanced student capable of independent study and the production of original work. Prerequisite: normally junior or senior standing and permission of the instructor. Every semester. (1–4 credits) 624 INTERNSHIP The department offers a variety of internships in educational, business, and governmental institutions. Internships sponsored by department faculty are available only to juniors and seniors who have made substantial progress toward the major or have completed a media studies minor or the equivalent and must be grounded in previous coursework. Normally, internships are graded pass/fail. Exceptions to this policy permitting a letter grade may be made at the discretion of the individual faculty member sponsoring the internship. Internships may be of variable credit as determined by the instructor, and up to four credits may be applied to the department major. Every semester. (1–4 credits) 634 PRECEPTORSHIP Work in assisting a faculty member on a varied range of activities involved in the planning and teaching of a course. Duties usually include course attendance, library research, test correction, conducting group study sessions, and tutoring individual students. Normally available only to juniors and seniors who have taken the course they will precept. Every semester. (1–4 credits) 644 HONORS INDEPENDENT Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of the senior honors project. Every semester. (1–4 credits)
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