English 188A-1 - Fall, 2014

Topics in Literary & Critical Theory

Topic: Representations: Gender + Aesthetics + Money = ?

Class Information

Instructor: Watkins, Evan
CRN: 63835
Time: MW 10:30-11:50
Location: 248 Voorhies

Description

Representations: Gender + Aesthetics + Money = ?

Over the last three or four decades cultural critics have developed multiple, nuanced and often quite complex ways of theorizing gender. For this course, however, I am interested in theorizing gender in the particular context of the following question: what happens when money supports the creation of aesthetically satisfying (for whom?) gender representations toward specific ends? In other words, we’ll be trying to make some sense of the intersections among the crucial concepts in that question, gender and representations and aesthetics and money. Mass-market advertising (whether on the Internet, on television or in films) offers an obvious example where all the elements of the question come together, but by no means the only one. (E.g. given this context what exactly are the differences between, say, Twilight and The Hunger Games?) Part of your work for the course will involve identifying other such examples as well as reading and working with the theory texts.

You will need a good Internet connection and an account (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) that lets you stream video and music.

Grading

Grading:
Weekly Blog Posts: 30%
Seminar Presentation: 20%
Term Paper: 50%

Texts

Course Reader