Textuality: Semiotics

To complement the other readings, here are three different discussions of 'semiotics' and semiotic analysis and their use for cultural studies and the analysis of media representations. These are not required readings if you have encountered 'media semiotics' before. I would however suggest, to those of you who are encountering 'semiotics' for the first time, to treat these readings as required readings: your work in class, your ability to grapple with the other required readings and your final project would certainly benefit from a familiarity with the concepts presented here.

Mieke Bal, Semiotics for Beginners
Scott McCloud, from Understading Comics: Chapter 2, Semiotics
Jonathan Bignell, Media Semiotics: Introduction + The Cinema

(Neo) Realism I: Cinema, The World and Truth

still from Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero (Italy, 1948)

Bondanella: Chapters 1-4

Overbey, Introduction to Springtime in Italy
(This includes a number of short articles by Zavattini, Antonioni, De Sica & Rossellini)

Marcus, Rossellini's Open City: The Founding
Bazin's collection of articles on neo-realism from What Is Cinema?; Vol. II
Merleau-Ponty, Preface to Phenomenology of Perception
Kracauer, The Found Story and the Episode from Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality

Communications: Ritual vs. Transmission? Works vs. Acts? Message vs. Text?

from Kenneth Anger's 'Scorpio Rising'

Plato, The Allegory of the Cave
James Carey, "A Cultural Approach to Communication" from Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989)

Construction and Performance I: Privilege and Representation

Power, Privilege and Discrimination

Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"

Cultural Studies & Representation
Douglas Kellner, "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture"
Sanjukta Gosh, "'Con-Fusing' Exotica: Producing India in US Advertising"

Ideology and Hegemony
Stuart Hall, "The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media"
James Lull, "Hegemony"

all readings (except the online Peggy McIntosh) are from Dines and Humez (eds), Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text-Reader; 2nd Edition(Sage, 2003)

Welcome to Fall 2017

Queering Texts: Popular Culture and The Oppositional Gaze

Alexander Doty, "There's Something Queer Here"

Susan Sontag, "On Camp"

Bruce LaBruce, "Pee Wee Herman: The Homosexual Subtext"

Richard Dyer, "Judy Garland and Gay Men"
Richard Dyer, "In Defense of Disco"
bell hooks, "The Oppositional Gaze"

"I'm A Rebel"

"I Know You Are But What Am I?"

LGBTQ+ Representation in Film and Television

Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, "Representing Gay Men on American Television"
Diane Raymond, "Popular Culture and Queer Representation: A Critical Perspective"

Susan J. Hubert, "What's Wrong With This Picture: The Politics of Ellen's Coming Out Party"
Fred Fejes, "Advertising and the Political Economy of Lesbian/Gay Identity"

Alexander Doty, "Modern Family, Glee, and the Limits of Television Liberalism" 

SEMBENE!

SEMBENE! (English version for SAA) from Galle Ceddo Projects on Vimeo.

"If Africans do not tell their own stories, Africa will soon disappear..."

For those who didn't make it to the screening last night here is a link to the Sembene! documentary. Watch it and reflect on how Sembene's project of offering an image to Africa, by an African filmmaker, about Africans and to Africans reverberates with some of the issues we have been discussing in class in regards to the power of representation and the way that power acts on modes of representation and related discursive practices. The first half of the film, up to the discussion of Camp de Thiaroye (1988) has many interesting and pertinent points in this regard.

The Social Construction of Race, Part Deux

This is the bulk of readings for the 'discourses of race' section of the course as we wade through it this week and next. Please have these articles read in the order posted. Pay particular attention to Zook's article on the Fox Network as it invests that political economic perspective that is so well dramatized in Bamboozled as well as the Means-Coleman article on 'black sitcoms' which is a good example of textual analysis.

Kristal Brent Zook, "The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television"
Robin R. Means-Coleman, "Black Sitcom Portrayals"
Herman Gray, "The Politics of Representation in Network Television" from Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness (University of Minnesota Press, 1995/2004)

Donald Bogle, "Workplace Dramas, Ensemble Casts 1990s Style"
Chyng Fen Sun, "Ling Woo in Historical Context: The New Face of Asian American Stereotypes on Television"

Please watch this 'incomplete sentence' vaudeville routine by Mantan Moreland & Ben Carter from the Charlie Chan movie The Scarlet Clue (Phil Rosen, 1945)

Below is Sarah Jones' 'Your Revolution' (with DJ Vadim) from Def Poetry Jam's Season 1 (2002)

The Social Construction of Race I

This is a short, introductory article on race and the media. As we watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled and discuss the film, Ash Corea's "Racism and the American Way of Media" is a good summary of the issues raised in the film and those that you will be reading about in greater detail with the next group of articles. As a bonus, a classic article by Stuart Hall.

Ash Corea, "Racism and the American Way of Media" from Questioning the Media
Stuart Hall, "What is This 'Black' in Black Popular Culture" from Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies





Clip from the 1949 film Hollywood Varieties where actors Glenn Vernon and Edward Ryan apply blackface make-up while on stage and reminisce about 'the good ol' days' --as they say-- of ministrelsy.

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Film

Stills from Otto Preminger's Laura, 1944

"Woman as image, man as bearer of the look."

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"

‘Men dream of women. Women dream of themselves being dreamt of. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at. -John Berger, Ways of Seeing

Jill Soloway, the creator of the TV series Transparent and the forthcoming I Love Dick (based on the Chris Kraus novel of the same title about having a crush on cultural critic and author Dick Hebdige which some of you might have read in previous classes; the pilot for the series, as is Amazon policy is available to preview, btw). This is a talk she gave on 'The Female Gaze' at the Toronto Film Festival.

Text and Context: Political Economy and Reception + Jackson Katz on Masculinity

Janice Radway, "Women Read The Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context"

David Croteau & William Hoynes, "The New Media Giants: Changing Industry Structure"

Jackson Katz, "Advertising and the Construction of Violent White Masculinity: From Eminem to Clinique for Men"

EXTRA READINGS:

Stuart Hall, "Encoding-Decoding"
Sut Jhally, "Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture"

That James Dean vs That Daydream Nation Look: Taylor Swift covered by Ryan Adams and Gendered Media Spaces

Here's a nice press review of the discourses surrounding the Ryan Adams/Taylor Swift operation. I've also included a few articles from the past past, mainly Taylor Swift profiles from mainstream magazines like The New Yorker and New York Magazine. Make sure you all read the Tavi Gevinson article linked to at the bottom of the post in .pdf format. I've also included a recent article from The Atlantic about authorship in pop music and the strategies used by record companies to downplay the 'outsourcing' of pop hit manufacturing. Enjoy.

Ryan Adams’s 1989 and the Vindication of Taylor Swift

Ryan Adams’s 1989 and the mansplaining of Taylor Swift

No Blank Space, Baby: Taylor Swift Is The Soul Of Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams isn’t revealing something ‘good’ about Taylor Swift’s ‘1989.’ The album was already great.

Platinum Underdog: Why Taylor Swift Is the Biggest Pop Star in the World

You Belong with Me

How Taylor Swift made teen angst into a business empire.

Taylor Swift Is Confusing

Haters Gonna Hate: Listening to Ryan Adams’s “1989”

The Reinvention of Taylor Swift

Flavorwire Interview: Talking Taylor Swift With Tavi Gevinson

JUST KIDDING, LOVE SUCKS

NOTES ON TAYLOR SWIFT

The complete version of this article by then 16-year old Tavi Gevinson published in The Believer in 2013 is below in PDF. Tavi Gevinson started the Style Rookie blog when she was 12. Rookie Mag below is a treasure of 'readings' of Tween/Teen culture from a non mainstream perspective --with all of its exhilaration and limitations.

Tavi Gevinson, JUST KIDDING

Rookie Mag 

Why must we hate the things teen girls love?

Hit Charade: Meet the bald Norwegians and other unknowns who actually create the songs that top the charts.

Beats 1 Ryan Adams interview about '1989' with Taylor Swift call in 'surprise'

Textuality: Semiotics

To complement the other readings, here are three different discussions of 'semiotics' and semiotic analysis and their use for cultural studies and the analysis of media representations. These are not required readings if you have encountered 'media semiotics' before. I would however suggest, to those of you who are encountering 'semiotics' for the first time, to treat these readings as required readings: your work in class, your ability to grapple with the other required readings and your final project would certainly benefit from a familiarity with the concepts presented here.

Mieke Bal, Semiotics for Beginners
Scott McCloud, from Understading Comics: Chapter 2, Semiotics
Jonathan Bignell, Media Semiotics: Introduction + The Cinema

Construction and Performance I: Privilege and Representation

Power, Privilege and Discrimination (...or...how I got woke)

Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"

Cultural Studies & Representation: Ideology and Hegemony

Douglas Kellner, "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture"
James Lull, "Hegemony"

Stuart Hall, "The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media"

all readings (except the online Peggy McIntosh) are from Dines and Humez (eds), Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text-Reader; 2nd Edition(Sage, 2003)