CMCL-C 204: Topics in Media, Culture, and Society
(Topic: Global Media and Local Perspectives: The Middle East and the
Balkans)
Class Number: 25651

MW, 4:00 PM-5:15 PM, TE F258
Required film screening: W, 7:00 PM-10:00 PM

Fulfills COLL S&H Requirement

Instructor: Eran Livni
E-Mail: elivni@indiana.edu
Office: Mottier Hall 265
Phone: 855-6405

This course will introduce students to the images, symbols, cultural
products, values, and identities that emerge and circulate through
global media forms.  These global media will include satellite TV,
online radio stations, cinemas, websites, and legal and pirate
ethnopop music markets.  The local perspectives of the course will
come from the Middle East and the Balkans – two regions that have
come to be perceived mostly as places of incessant violent
conflicts.  A couple of major questions will help us look beyond
this dominant image of violence to see the complex cultural dynamics
in these two regions.  First, what kinds of Middle Eastern and
Balkan boundaries do media cultures draw?  Second, how do Middle
Eastern and Balkan media cultures negotiate between global and local
trends?  We will address these questions by learning, for example,
why a newly discovered asteroid was named after a Bulgarian drag
queen folk singer, why the Arab TV station Aljazeera covered the
final match of the Israeli national soccer cup, how a new brand of
cola transforms Americans into Turks, and how plagiarism rather than
originality makes local songs great regional pop hits.  Class
readings will help us make sense of these (and many other) examples
of the cultural interaction between the global and the local. Our
goal throughout the semester will be to learn how to think
critically about global media and about the roles it plays in the
shaping of national, regional, transnational, and diasporic groups
and societies.


•Since this is a 200-level course, no previous knowledge of either
relevant theory or Middle Eastern and Balkan cultures is required.

•Class sessions will consist of lectures and guest lectures, class
discussions, and group presentations.

•There will be a midterm exam, a few short writing assignments, and
a take-home final.

•Attendance will be required and will count toward the final grade.

•There will be several mandatory evening film screenings (exact
dates will be given at the beginning of the semester).