2:30P-3:45P TR (70) 3 cr

TOPIC: GENDER, SEXUALITY AND POPULAR CULTURE =20

This course will address the representation of gender and
sexuality in popular culture.  Although our focus will be on
popular culture of roughly the past decade, an initial unit will
explore historically how ideas about gender and sexuality have
been informed by the proliferation of visual and electronic media
(film, television, video) in the twentieth century. Some of the
issues on which I expect to focus during the course of the
semester include:  the politics of the spectacle (of seeing and
being seen); the racialization of gender and sexuality; the
production of gender and sexuality as saleable images, bodies,
and styles in the market economy of popular culture; the
implications of new technologies, and specifically of "virtual
reality," for the idea of "the body," and embodied identities.=20
Course materials will probably include Toni Morrison's THE BLUEST
EYE and William Gibson's cyberpunk novel NEUROMANCER; a range of
films from BLONDE VENUS (1932) to DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (1995);
television series such as ER, CYBIL, or ELLEN; and music videos
by Madonna, Laurie Anderson, and Hole, among others.  Reviews and
critical analyses of these materials will be assembled in a
course packet.  Work for the course will include several short
writing assignments, a longer research paper, a midterm and a
final exam.