Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies

TR 9:40 - 11:10 a.m. OLRI 270,
W 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. OLRI 270, Professor Clay Steinman

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 grounded 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. (4 credits)

114-01: News Reporting/Writing

M 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. HUM 217, Howard Sinker

Taught by a Macalester graduate who is a veteran writer and editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and startribune.com, this class provides an introduction to newspaper and internet reporting. The campus and Twin Cities communities are used as students plan, develop, report and write their stories while developing an understanding of the multiple journalism platforms that are part of contemporary journalism. (4 credits).

114-01: News Reporting/Writing

MWF 1:10-2:10 p.m. MARKIM 201, ProfessorMichael Griffin

This course provides an introduction to newspaper and Internet reporting. it combines the study and practice of routine forms of reporting and writing with a critical consideration of changing journalism practices and their impact. Students will learn and practice the norms and techniques of newspaper style reporting and writing, as well as reporting and writing for magazines, radio, television and the web. The campus and Twin Cities communities are used as students plan, develop, report and write their stories while developing an understanding of the multiple journalism platforms that are part of contemporary journalism. There may be opportunities for students to publish their work work through community media outlets (4 credits).

121-01: The Greek World

TR 3:00-4:30 p.m. MAIN 001, Professor Corby Kelly

Crosslisted with CLAS 121-01 and HIST 121-01

This course surveys the political, economic, and cultural development of the peoples of the ancient Greek world from the late Bronze Age through the Hellenistic era. Students will hone their critical thinking skills while working with translations of ancient literature, archaeological remains and works of art. The basic structure of the course is chronological, but we will examine major themes across time and space, which may include the interaction between physical landscape and historical change; rule by the one, the few and the many; the nature and development of literary and artistic genres; the economic, military, and/or cultural dimensions of empire; or the intersections of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, slave/free status and civic identity in the Greek world. Alternate years. (4 credits)

128-01: Film Analysis And Visual Culture

TR 1:20 - 2:50 p.m. HUM 401, Professor Clay Steinman

First-years welcome; first day attendance required; mandatory film screenings TBA.

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. (4 credits)

194-01: Race/Silent Film: Griffith & Micheaux

MW 7:00-10:00 p.m. HUM 402, Professor Clay Steinman

First year course only
An introductory, first-year course on raced representation in US silent film, concentrating on a comparison of the productions of D. W. Griffith and Oscar Micheaux, perhaps the leading white and black filmmakers of their time. These films were made and exhibited within separate cinemas shaped by white supremacist institutions, and, most important, with segregated audiences in mind. Comparisons illuminate the way the works reproduce strikingly different discourses of race, gender, and class. Attention will be paid to the distinctive editing styles of the two sets of films, and the way in which such styles, like their cinematography, can be seen as raced. Extensive discussions, readings, and screenings (for which extra time has been included in the schedule). Several essay exams and one short paper required.

Click here for syllabus.

202-01: Global Media Industries

MWF 9:40 - 10:40 a.m. CARN 404, Professor Amanda Ciafone

Crosslisted with INTL 202-01

This course investigates the effects of globalization on worldwide cultural identities, with media and popular culture as the primary focus of inquiry. We will interrogate where cultural identity and symbolic communities come from and consider the politics of common culture. We will ask who defines meanings, and what meanings are omitted. Combining theory, worldwide media (film, video, e-media, music and more), and case studies, we will explore numerous paradigms (modernization, cultural imperialism, post-modernism, post-structuralism) as frameworks of understanding. Open to first- and second-year students. (4 credits)

256: Mass Culture Under Communism

TR 9:40-11:10a.m. HUM 215, Professor Karen Rosenflanz

Crosslisted with RUSS 256-01

Mass Culture under Communism - 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, 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.

294-01: Introduction to New Media

TR 3:00-4:30 p.m. HUM 402, Professor John Kim

Suitable for first years

In the last couple of decades we have seen the invention and popularization of a wide assortment of digital technologies and with them, a bewildering variety of new media forms. The internet (which includes a collection of media forms, from web pages and peer-to-peer software to social networking and video sharing sites), massively multiplayer online video games, mobile computing, software, cell phones – together, many argue, these and other forms of new media are reshaping how we live, create, work and, even, what it means to be human.

In this class we’ll examine a cross-section of contemporary humanistic research that has sought to understand the impact(s) of new media through a comparison to earlier, pre-digital media. In addition, we will engage in hands-on workshops, where we will use and learn some of the tools, software and websites that our texts consider. By the end of the course, you should be able to critique and synthesize the ways in which others have characterized the impact of new media. You should have a sense of just what is and isn’t “new” about new media. And most important of all, you should have begun to build your own theories of how new media and the humanities interact.

294:02 Afro-Futurism in Old and New Media

MWF 9:40 - 10:40 a.m. HUM 401, Professor Leola Johnson

Crosslisted with AMST 294-02; first day attendance required

Afrofuturism is an artistic movement that uses science fiction and technoculture to address African-American concerns. In 2005, the Soap Factory, a local art space near the University of Minnesota, sponsored one of the first exhibits in then nation of Afro-futurist work, and HMCS was one of several co-sponsors of that event. The exhibit introduced our students to the critical and scholarly work of Yale sociologist Alondra Nelson, as well as the curatorial and artistic work of Black local and national artists whose work is displayed on the web and in art galleries, as well as in popular film, television and literature. That exhibit has since traveled to other locations, and Afrofuturism has taken off as a movement that engages scholars, critics and artists. In this course, we will explore some of the key works in the emerging Afro-futurist cannon, including Black science fiction in literature and on film and television, futuristic Black representations from the music world (e.g., Space is the Place by Sun Ra, and George Clinton’s mothership connection), and the web design and video installation work of Cinque Hicks and others.

Click here for syllabus.

294-03 Hip Hop Performance: REMIX2009

TR 1:20 - 2:50 p.m. THEATR 204, Professor Harry Waters

Cross-listed with THDA 294-02; First day attendance required

What is Hip Hop culture, what is Hip Hop performance, and can we stage such a performance here at Macalester? In line with these questions, the course is divided into sections. From the beginning we will read and discuss critical examinations of hip hop culture. We will learn about leading figures and events in the development of hip hop and talk about its sexism, homophobia and consumerism. We will investigate the theory and practice of hip hop performance, including one person shows, theatrical performances, and various hybrid forms (such as the hip-opera).This will include a series of workshops with local and national hip hop artists on graffiti writing, spoken word, hip hop dance, and dj-ing/producing, during which we will construct and present a class produced Hip Hop Performance. Limited Class enrollment.

294-04: Theory and Method in the Study of Religion

TR 3:00-4:30 p.m. THEATR 204, Professor Paula Cooey

Cross-listed with RELI 235-01

The course is an introduction to some of the important theoretical and methodological work conducted by scholars in various disciplines who hope to better define and understand religious phenomena. This seminar begins with some of the early twentieth century texts that are often cited and discussed by contemporary scholars of religion (e.g., Durkheim, Weber, Freud) and then turns to a number of investigations stemming from engagement with earlier theorists or refracting new concerns. The course inquires into the problems of defining and analyzing religious cultures, and the researcher's position or positions in this analysis, as this has been approached from anthropological, sociological, and religious studies perspectives. Every year. (4 credits)

367-01: Postcolonial Theory

MWF 10:50 - 11:50 a.m. CARN 404, Professor David Moore

Crosslisted with ENGL 367-02 and INTL 367-01

One of the past century's most profound transformations was decolonization: the end of direct European rule over vast areas of the earth. The worlds of cultural and political analysis have both contributed and responded to this transformation, producing a forceful body of writings we name colonial and postcolonial critique. This course examines key documents, questions, and themes in that vast body of writing. Then, we will meaningfully add to it.

392-01 Critical Race Theory

M 12:00 pm-01:00 pm HUM 212 Leola Johnson

Course for Mellon Program students only; instructor approval required; cross-listed with AMST 392-01

394-01: Metaphysics in Secular Thought

MWF 9:40 -10:40 a.m. HUM 402, Professor Kiarina Kordela

Crosslisted with GERM 394-01; Taught in English

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)

394-02 From Literature to Film/Studies in Adaptation: Vietnam

TR 03:00 pm-04:30 pm HUM 401 Casey Jarrin

Cross-listed with ENGL 386-01; First day attendance required

HMCS 488-01:Capstone Seminar: Blackness/Politics/Media

W 12:40 - 4:00 pm. HUM 401, Professor Leola Johnson

Cross-listed with AMST 494-01

Click here for syllabus.

Macalester College · 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105 USA · 651-696-6000
Comments and questions to mleduc@macalester.edu