Oberlin College Dr. Meredith Raimondo

Oberlin College Dr. Meredith Raimondo CAST 412 Phone: 775-5291 Spring 2008 Email: [email protected] Time: W 7 – 9 p.m. Office: King 141G Location: King 121 Office Hours: W 9 – 11, Th 11 - 12

IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE

Description:

This seminar examines the politics of identity and difference in American popular culture. In particular, we will concentrate on the ways that marginalized groups contest their representation in mass culture and create new forms of cultural expression. This course does not provide a comprehensive survey of culture forms, but rather explores a series of case studies in order to examine the relationship between popular culture and identity, the development of popular practices and cultural activism, and the dynamics of representation and commodification in consumer capitalism. Throughout the course, we will consider ways in which the study of popular culture is relevant to Ethnic Studies, Queer Studies, Women’s Studies, and other fields of political interdisciplinary scholarship. Students will engage in close readings of assigned texts while developing original research on primary sources. In final projects for this course, students will develop a scholarly analysis, a creative project engaged with course themes, or an activist project which identifies and addresses a political problem in American popular culture.

Because this course will be conducted as a seminar, it relies on students’ thoughtful preparation and active engagement with course materials. In order for us to have the most productive experience possible this semester, each member of the course must take personal responsibility for contributing to the collective learning experience. It is your commitment to come to each meeting ready to engage with other seminar members about the issues that most interest you.

Course Objectives: 1) to develop a working knowledge of key terms in popular culture studies including popular culture, mass media, consumer culture, publics and counterpublics, hegemony, and agency 2) to explore the political significance of analyzing popular culture in the context of social and scholarly notions of cultural hierarchy 3) to take an intersectional approach to popular culture studies, examining the ways in which interlocking systems of oppression shape hegemony and resistance 4) to deepen critical thinking through written analysis and group discussion 5) to produce original work that draws on scholarly resources and connects academic research to social expression, creative practices, and political organizing 6) to create intellectual community in the classroom by paying attention to the ways that identity shapes our experiences as students and participants in popular culture CAST 321 2

7) to provide a capstone experience which asks students to draw on skills and knowledge developed in the CAST major

Required Texts:

Books are available at the Oberlin College Bookstore or the Mudd Library Reserve room.

Becker, Ron. Gay TV and Straight America. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006.

España-Maram, Linda. Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles’s Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture, 1920s – 1950s. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Gaunt, Kyra. The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip- Hop. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

Gopinath, Gayatri. Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.

Habell-Pallán, Michelle. Loca Motion: The Travels of Chicana and Latina Popular Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2005.

Lawlor, Mary. Public Native America: Tribal Self-Representation in Museums, Powwows, and Casinos. New Brunswick: Rutgers Unversity Press, 2006.

Miranda, Marie “Keta.” Homegirls in the Public Sphere. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.

Articles with a * are available under on Blackboard under “Course Documents.” Please note: You are required to bring printed copies or extensive reading notes to class meetings.

Course Requirements:

Discussion: The academic study of difference often raises issues that are controversial or which evoke strong personal feelings. There are few “right” answers to the questions we are exploring; my goal in this course is to help you to develop the skills to articulate your own positions. It is therefore critical that everyone commits to making this classroom a space for the honest and open expression of difference. I ask that course members respond to carefully thought-out ideas and questions with patience and respect.

Reading: It is important to cultivate the skills that allow you to manage lengthy reading assignments. If you find you are having trouble finishing the reading, please see me so we can identify effective strategies for completing the assignments. CAST 321 3

Late Policy: It is your commitment to this class and your classmates that you will be present and ready to begin work at the start of class. Repeated lateness may result in significant deductions to your final grade in this course.

Course assignments must be submitted on time in order to receive full credit. I will deduct 1/3 of a grade for each day (24 hours) an assignment is late (i.e., from B+ to B). Late papers may not receive written comments. Please save your work often to avoid computer-related disasters and be sure to allow sufficient time to print in case of technical difficulties. Requests for extensions must be submitted in writing at least 48 hours prior to the assignment due date and are generally available only for extraordinary circumstances. If you receive an extension, you must attach my written approval in order to receive on-time credit for your work. Papers due in class must be turned in at the start of class—if you arrive late, the paper will be considered one day late.

Assignment Format: Written assignments should word-processed, double-spaced, and use a standard font type and size (12 point Times New Roman or the equivalent). Include your name, the date, a title, and page numbers. If you are required to submit a paper copy, you must staple the pages. For either electronic or paper submissions, please be sure to proofread carefully for style and grammar. Papers that do not follow proper formatting instructions may receive a 1/3 of a grade deduction.

CR/NE or P/NP: If you are taking this course CR/NE or P/NP, you must fulfill all course obligations and complete all assignments in order to receive credit for the course.

Honor Code: This course will follow the policies described in the Oberlin College Honor Code and Honor System. Please include the statement “I affirm that I have adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment” in all written work. If you have any questions about academic honesty, citation, or the relationship of the Honor Code to your work in this course, please let me know.

Students with Disabilities: If you need disability-related accommodations for your work in this course, please let me know. Support is available through Student Academic Services—please contact Jane Boomer, Coordinator of Services for Students with Disabilities, for assistance in developing a plan to address your academic needs.

Assignments:

1. PARTICIPATION (10%): In order for our time in class together to be as productive as possible, you will be expected to contribute to three areas as follows:

Attendance: This course will be primarily conducted as a discussion course; therefore, your consistent attendance is required. After two absences, additional absences will generally lower your final grade in the course (1/3 of a grade per two additional absences). In case of illness or personal emergency, absences may be excused through a doctor or dean’s note. CAST 321 4

Discussion: Your thoughtful spoken analysis and active listening will be a central component of your work in this course. If you are uncomfortable speaking in class, please come and see me and we can discuss strategies for your participation.

In-class Activities: In-class activities may include small group discussion, writing assignments, or other collaborative work. These assignments will not be graded but must be completed.

2. READING RESPONSE ASSIGNMENT (25%). This assignment consists of two components (9 weekly response papers, 1 presentation).

a. Weekly response papers. 2 – 3 pages. Please see the assignment handout for more detailed directions. Papers must be posted to Blackboard by 10 p.m. each Tuesday.

b. Integrative Presentation. With a partner, you will develop a critical analysis describing the assigned readings and identifying the concerns, interests, and questions raised by seminar members in their response papers. This assignment counts as 1 response paper— you are not submitted to submit one the week of your presentation.

3. GROUP PRESENTATION (10%). Due various dates to be assigned. In a group of 3, you will develop a presentation on a primary source of your choice. See assignment handout for further details.

4. RESEARCH PROJECT. Choose a research paper, a creative media project, or a media action project. See project handout for further details.

a. PROPOSAL (5%). 2 – 4 pages (1½ – 2 pages plus annotated bibliography). Due March 14 at 12 p.m. to King 141-G.

b. PRESENTATION (10%). Due April 30 – May 7. See project handout for presentation guidelines. You must also complete a Blackboard response for full credit.

c. FINAL DRAFT (40%) See project handout for length requirements for various formats. Due May 15 at 11 a.m. in King 141-G.

Summary of Deadlines:

Weekly Reading Response Various Group Presentation Mar 14 Project Proposal Apr 30 - May 7 Research Presentation May 15 Research Project CAST 321 5

Summary of Grading Policy:

Participation……………….……10% Reading Response………….……25% Group Presentation…...... 10% Paper Proposal. ………...... 5% Paper Presentation……………....10% Final Draft…………….…….…...40%

Schedule of Readings:

CONSTRUCTING AND CONTESTING THE NATION

W Feb 6: Introductions: Why Popular Cultures? • Henry Jenkins, Tara McPherson, and Jane Sattuc, “Defining Popular Culture,” 26 – 42* • Stuart Hall, “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular,” 477 – 487* • George Lipsitz, “In the Sweet Buy and Buy,” 235 – 269*

W Feb 13: Negotiating Identities and Communities through Popular Practices • Linda España-Maram, Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles’s Little Manila

W Feb 20: Colonization, Decolonization and Self-Representation • Mary Lawlor, Public Native America

W Feb 27: Colors of Whiteness in American Popular Culture • Eric Lott, “Genuine Negro Fun,” 136 – 168* • Annemarie Bean, “Transgressing the Gender Divide,” 245 – 256* • Philip Deloria, “Fraternal Indians and Republican Identities,” 38 – 70* • Linda Frost, “The White Gaze, the Spectacle of Slavery, and the Circassian Beauty,” 56 – 85* • Krystyn Moon, “Toward Exclusion,” 30 – 56* • Russell White, “Behind the Mask,” 65 – 79*

CULTURES OF RESISTANCE

W Mar 5 Bodies of Cultural Knowledge CAST 321 6

• Kyra Gaunt, The Games Black Girls Play

W Mar 12: Producing Counterpublics • Marie “Keta” Miranda, Homegirls in the Public Sphere

F Mar 14: ***Project proposals due to King 141-G by 12 p.m.

W Mar 19: Transnational Publics • Gaytri Gopinath, Impossible Desires

W Mar 26: Spring Break

W Apr 2: Cultural Producers as Political Activists • Michelle Habell-Pallán, Loca Motion

PLEASURE AND DANGER IN MASS CULTURE

W Apr 9: Queer Subject Formations: Producing Gay and Straight Identities • Ron Becker, Gay TV and Straight America • Karen Tongson, “JJ Chinois’s Oriental Express,”193 – 217*

W Apr 16: Consumer Cultures and the Politics of Desire • Anne McClintock, “Soft-Soaping Empire,” 129 – 152* • Shirley Lim, “Shortcut to Glamour,” 87 – 120* • Michael Petit, “Cleaned to eBay Standards,” 267 – 281* • Dwight McBride, “Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch,” 59 – 87*

W Apr 23: Appropriation, Authenticity, and the Politics of Culture • Penny Von Eschen, “Jazz, Gospel, and R&B,” 148 - 184* •Caroline Streeter, “Faking the Funk?,” 185 – 207* • Nancy Cornwell and Mark Orbe, “‘Keepin’ It Real’ and/or ‘Sellin’ Out to the Man,’” 27 – 43* • Tim’m T. West, “Keepin’ It Real,” 162 – 184* • John Hutnyk, “Authenticity or Cultural Politics?,” 114 – 137*

W Apr 30: Presentations W May 7: Presentations

Th May 15 Final Project due at 11 a.m. to King 141-G ***Please note: Late projects will not be accepted CAST 321 7

Citations for Assigned Articles

Bean, Annemarie. “Transgressing the Gender Divide: The Female Impersonator in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy.” In Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy, ed. Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1996. 245 – 256.

Cornwell, Nancy and Mark Orbe. “‘Keepin’ It Real’ and/or ‘Sellin’ Out to the Man’: African-American Responses to Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks.” In Say It Loud! African-American Audiences, Media, and Identity, ed. Robin Means Coleman. New York: Routledge, 2002. 27 – 43.

Deloria, Philip. “Two Declarations of Independence.” In Playing Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. 38 – 70.

Frost, Linda. “The White Gaze, The Spectacle of Slavery, and the Circassian Beauty.” In Never One Nation: Freaks, Savages, and Whiteness in U.S. Popular Culture, 1850 – 1877. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 2005. 56 – 85.

Hall, Stuart. “Notes on Deconstructing ‘The Popular.’.” In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, ed. John Storey. 3rd ed. New York: Pearson Education Limited, 2006.. 477 – 487.

Hutnyk, John. “Authenticity or Cultural Politics?” In Critique of Exotica: Music, Politics, and the Culture Industry. London: Pluto Press, 2000. 114 – 137.

Jenkins, Henry, Tara McPherson, and Jane Sattuc. “Defining Popular Culture.” In Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, ed. Henry Jenkins, Tara McPherson, and Jane Shattuc. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. 26 – 42.

Lim, Shirley. “Shortcut to Glamour: Popular Culture in a Consumer Society.” In A Feeling of Belonging: AsianAmerican Women’s Public Culture, 1930 – 1960. New York: New York University Press, 2006. 87 – 120.

Lipsitz, George. “In the Sweet Buy and Buy: Consumer Culture and American Studies.” In American Studies in a Moment of Danger. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. 235 – 269.

McBride, Dwight. “Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch.” In Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality. New York: New York University Press, 2005. 59 – 87.

McClintock, Anne. “Soft-Soaping Empire: Commodity Racism and Imperial Advertising.” In The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader, ed. Jennifer Scanlon (New York: New York University Press, 2000): 129 – 152.

Moon, Krystyn. “Toward Exclusion: American Popular Songs on Chinese Immigration, 1850 – 1882.” In Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s – 1920s. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005. 30 – 56.

Petit, Micahel. “‘Cleaned to eBay Standards’: Sex Panic, eBay, and the Moral Economy of Underwear.” In Everyday eBay: Culture, Collecting, and Desire, ed. Ken Hillis and Michael Petit with Nathan Scott Epley. New York: Routledge, 2006. 267 – 281.

Rogin, Michael. “Two Declarations of Independence: The Contaminated Origins of American National Culture.” In Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigratns in the Hollywood Melting Pot. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. 19 – 44. CAST 321 8

David Silver and Alice Marwick, “Internet Studies in a Time of Terror.” In Critical Cyberculture Studies, ed. David Silver and Adrienne Massanari. New York: New York University Press, 2006. 47 – 53.

Streeter, Caroline. “Faking the Funk? Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, and (Hybrid) Black Celebrity.” In Black Cultural Traffic: Crossroads in Global Performance and Popular Culture, ed. Harry Elam, Jr. and Kennell Jackson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2005. 185 – 207.

Tongson, Karen. “JJ Chinois’s Oriental Express, Or, How a Suburban Heartthrob Seduced Red America.” Social Text 84 – 85: 23, no. 3 -4 (Fall/Winter 2005): 193 – 217.

Von Eschen, Penny. “Jazz, Gospel, and R&B: Black Power Abroad.” In Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. 148 – 184.

White, Russell. “‘Behind the Mask’: Eminen and Post-Industrial Minstrelsy.” European Journal of American Culture 25, no. 1 (2006): 65 – 79.

West , Tim’m T., “Keepin’ It Real: Disidentification and its Discontents.” In Black Cultural Traffic: Crossroads in Global Performance and Popular Culture, ed. Harry Elam, Jr. and Kennell Jackson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2005. 162 – 184.