Popular Culture, Film and Media Summer 2015 Boğaziçi University Department of Western Languages and Literatures Instructor: Tolga Yalur E-mail contact:
[email protected] Assessment Method: Class participation, attendance 45% Term paper 55% Course Description: This course is designed to analyze the basic patterns and pillars of popular culture as they are used and revealed in certain examples from American and world cinemas to present to masses the basic institutions of popular culture. In method, it is essentially a film-reading course. Course Content: The meaning of “popular”, a brief history of popular culture, its main pillars and basic elements, characteristic features, paradigms, replication myth and the influence of myths like creation myths, themes and patterns. Readings of films from USA, Turkey, England, TV shows and programs, music, and art, namely; sculpture, architecture; their language and style and presentations, their artistic and political and ideological interpretations. Course Materials: Fishwick, Marshall W. Seven Pillars of Popular Culture (Westport: GreenwoodPress, 1985) Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction (Longman, 2008) Supplementary Books: Baudrillard, Jean. Amerika. Çev. Yaşar Avunç (İstanbul: Ayrıntı, 1996) Somay, Bülent. Tarihin Bilinçdışı: Popüler Kültür Üzerine Denemeler (İstanbul: Metis, 2004) Eradam, Yusuf. Vanilyalı İdeoloji (İstanbul: Aykırı Yayıncılık, 2004) Güngör, Nazife (Der.). Popüler Kültür ve İktidar: Popüler Kültür Üzerine Kuramsal İncelemeler (Ankara: Vadi Yayınları, 1999) Week 1: Popular culture Screening and Discussion: Film clips and music videos: Grease (1978), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Tootsie (1982), Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Luciano Pavarotti’s Concert in Hyde Park (London, 1991) Readings: Storey, John. Ch.1 “What is popular culture?” Fishwick, Marshall W.