Pop Culture and the Curriculum

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I find the conceptual separation of "popular" from "elite" culture on 
this list really interesting, as in fact they both fulfill the same 
"enculturating" function and deliver and reinforce the same messages to 
their respective consumers, albeit in their different respective 
languages and other stimuli--all to reinforce the status quo/dominant 
ideology/established power relations and insure that they continue 
without fundamental change from generation to generation.  
Shakespeare's works did that in his day for the masses, and do it now 
for the privileged--and the message is the same, no matter how 
beautiful the language:  women are weak, dependent, romantic, 
dangerous, deceitful and in need of "taming."  Messages that challenge 
status quo power relations and belief-systems are PREVENTED FROM 
becoming "popular" by those in power, who have the means of controlling 
the information marketplace (some slipping by in the guise of 
children's literature or male authorship notwithstanding)--any teenage 
girl in the U.S. can tell you all about Paris Hilton, Beyonce, and 
Snoop Dogg but few have ever heard of Ani DiFranco or Sweet Honey in 
the Rock.  It seems to me that part of our job as educators and 
"consciousness-raisers" is to expose students to those ideas and sounds 
and images they DON'T get routinely out there in the world, while 
arming them with critical lenses through which to EVALUATE and 
RECOGNIZE, rather than simply absorb and accept (and in the context of 
the conversation on this list, venerate!), the familiar, engaging, 
literally mindbending fare...

And mainly BECAUSE OF its familiarity I certainly recognize the 
pedagogical utility of pop culture references and examples in the 
classroom--indeed I used to scandalize my colleagues by incorporating 
said references and examples into whatever I was teaching (which I 
still do but obviously it's no longer objectionable!)--I also fully 
support the idea of having a course offering or two that address pop 
culture AS A GENRE and apply feminist analysis (in the WS context) to 
selected examples of same.  As per my earlier post, I also find it 
interesting that the lengthy pseudo-scholarly defense of channeling an 
entire course's-worth of student time and attention into Buffy 
(including credence to Buffy "conventions" as having some sort of 
intrinsic value apart from being perhaps a critical analysis field 
project experience!) is put forth by a PhD candidate in Literature and 
Media Studies.  That is EXACTLY where that attention belongs--but to 
sweepingly generalize it to a WOMEN'S Studies core course and/or core 
focus (as opposed to an interesting cross-listing) is what becomes 
problematic for me.  Nowhere in this conversation have I noticed a 
focus on POLITICAL ECONOMY, which is what I would expect to be the 
primary theme of a WS "take" on pop culture trends and icons...

Re an "intellectual defense" of my remarks?  Forward a grant and I'll 
write the book.  Send me a contract and I'll design and teach the 
course.  Deposit the consultant fee in PayPal and I'll be glad to 
assemble the literature review.   Sponsor a talking circle of elder 
wisewomen and I'll be there with the copal and white feather of truth.  
In the meantime, the discourse continues..

Deb Louis
dlouis44  AT  sbcglobal.net

Deb Louis wrote:

"I find the conceptual separation of "popular" from "elite" culture on this 
list really interesting, as in fact they both fulfill the same
"enculturating" function and deliver and reinforce the same messages to 
their respective consumers, albeit in their different respective
languages and other stimuli--all to reinforce the status quo/dominant 
ideology/established power relations and insure that they continue
without fundamental change from generation to generation."

Yet the rest of her message is self-refuting, for it suggests -- might I say 
"in an elitist fashion: -- that some people, such as  Louis herself, somehow 
manage to break through these delusions and promote "fundamental change." 
Are these people outside of "culture"?  Abductees who've gotten wisdom on 
another planet?

If what students are learning is the generalization offerd by Deb about how 
"culture" functions to reinforce the status quo, then how does she think she 
ever got the smarts to think through it and make the statement she made?  Of 
course one answer (as well as mountains of examples) is that culture is not 
nearly so monolithic, that writers have done many different things with 
their writing, that historical change is a fact, that the human mind is 
imaginative and can think itself outside its immediate limitations. I 
suspect Deb Louis actually DOES know this, and knows how her own thinking 
has benefited from her predecessors' efforts. (BTW, it's equally false to 
say, as some critics do, that *all* writing is subversive and 
revolutionary.)

But what are the consequences of  the assertion with which Deb began her 
message? If everything reduces to what she claims, why on earth should 
anyone ever study anything?  All one needs to know is the bottom line, as 
articulated by Louis-- though it is ahistorical, dogmatic, and profoundly 
false.  What an economical intellectual move.

That a professor should make the assertions Deb Louis did is shocking; that 
that professor should be a former president of the National Women's Studies 
Association is even more amazing.  I've always felt that hope for women's 
studies lies with individual teachers who don't subscribe to some of the 
general dogmas of the field -- such as Deb's assertion.  If one teaches 
students critical thinking skills, as Deb goes on to say, they will see the 
self-refuting aspect of Deb's message. I  dare hope  Deb as a teacher is 
successful while Deb as a feminist propagandist is not. And the conflation 
of the two is what I continue to worry about.

P.S. Deb, lots of people, including  professors, write books without grants. 
Do you want students and younger colleagues not to know this?  Another 
misrepresentation of the actual world.  Furthermore, lots of feminist 
projects have been awarded grants, for decades now, which should be 
impossible if "culture" is as you describe it.

Daphne Patai
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu 

I agree with Peggy Davis and others defending the study of popular
culture in women's studies.  For those of us teaching, the question
is: how do we make it worth teaching?  Isn't it the same question we
ask if we're teaching the novels of Jane Austen?  In a media-saturated
society overrun by the interests of global capitalism, women's studies
teachers should want our students (1) to gain the ability to use
gender to apply critical analysis to representations of women,
femininity, and masculinity in mainstream (commercial) film,
literature, television shows, advertising, and music in contemporary
American popular culture; (2) to develop a scholarly attitude about
heavily marketed products of popular culture and their encroachment
into students' lives and value systems, as regards gender; --and let's
not forget (3) to gain the ability to use gender analysis to evaluate
the diverse responses of "alternative" female and feminist artists and
alternative media to mainstream popular culture, in regard to women
and gender.
 
[Those 3 items are among the objectives on my "American Women and Popular Culture" course syllabus.]
 

  Jo-Ann Pilardi, Towson Univ., MD  jpilardi  AT  towson.edu

At 01:34 PM 9/15/2006 -0400, you wrote:

>             I take both sides on this issue. I am often appalled at what my
>students don't know about the world. Recently I brought up conflicts in
>Northern Ireland between the Protestants and Catholics and was met with
>mystified looks. The college students had never heard of this! This happens
>a lot. I mention something in passing that should be part of shared
>knowledge and students don't know it. But I am thinking of two other factors
>that bear on this discussion.

Second this.  I was guest teaching a women's studies class   AT   a western 
university -- juniors mostly -- and i mentioned the Vietnam War.  A student 
asked me if that was the same as the Civil War....

i believe in reading.  In all the writing workshops Ira and I teach 
separately or together, we emphasize that you cannot write without 
reading.  But Buffy is not chick-lit.  It was highly literate and unusually 
complex.  It had a lot of subtext.  I also get alarmed at the frequent use 
of videos in place of books in classrooms, however.  One time when I was a 
visiting lecturer for a semester, I assigned a book a week and by the 4th 
week I had a revolt on my hands.

marge piercy

Teaching pop culture is not about buying into the dumbing down of
American Culture but about harnessing the powerful tools of critical
media theory to the analysis of pop culture as both a text and in
industry. In cultural studies, the approach is to explore three
connected but discreet areas:

1.	the political economy of media
2.	textual formation
3.	the politics of consumption

In America, there is a fascination with 2 where texts are endlessly
debated in a vacuum as if they just fell from the sky and exist
outside of the political economy of capitalism.  Buffy certainly is
very interesting textually but it is produced within a complex set of
economic relations and consumed within a culture where the hegemonic
discourse is reproduced minute by minute in pop culture. This is not
to argue that texts are not polysemic, but that, as Hall so well
showed in his Encoding/Decoding article, they are structured in
dominance, thus limiting their polysemic qualities.

Teaching about pop culture is more than talking about texts. It is a
way into a broader analysis of the political economy of capitalism, an
analysis of how ideology works in a society where inequality is
structural and a means for understanding how identity is constructed
and reconstructed by consumer capitalism. It is this identity
formation that helps to explain how this country has ended up backing
a war that the rest of the world is against, why working class people
constantly vote against their class interests, why women capitulate to
patriarchal representation of themselves and so on. Pop culture is
never trivial, no matter how trivial the text may seem as it is
heavily implicated in the economic, social and political structures of
the society in which it is produced and consumed.

Gail

Gail Dines
Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies
Chair of American Studies
Wheelock College
35 Pilgrim Road
Boston, MA 02215
gdines  AT  wheelock.edu

I too have been following the pop culture thread on the list quite 
avidly, especially because I'm going on the job market this year and am 
applying to many jobs of both the women's studies and film studies 
variety.  Luckily, there are a plethora of Women and Media Studies jobs 
now listed that would seem to bridge my two interests remarkably 
well--hoorah.

Yet, I'm quite confused by Deb Louis's posting.  Is there a women's 
studies "approach" that is specific to the field (perhaps largely 
Sociology-based)?  I'm thrilled that there are stand alone Women's 
Studies departments (Emory now has one--not a "program"), but so many 
are filled with joint appointments, and women's studies can be 
extremely interdisciplinary it seems.

So what's the 411?  I'm trying to take the temperature of the field, 
and as someone who analyzes both popular culture and pornography--hot 
topics on this list--I'm just trying to figure out if there's place for 
me.

best wishes,

Dr. Nina K. Martin
Assistant Professor of Film Studies
Emory University

As someone who's currently teaching a course on "sex, gender and popular 
culture", let me say that teachers rarely *just* have students watch an 
episode of Buffy or *just* read a pop-lit novel.  The implication of some 
replies here is that there is a dichotomy between good teachers=classical 
lit/theory, bad teachers=popular culture.   As a teacher of popular culture, 
I feel students are done a disservice if we don't provide the tools of 
analysis.  So, my students are currently reading articles by Stuart Hall, 
Laura Mulvey, etc. and I've lectured on neo-Marxism, the Frankfurt School, 
Gramscian hegemony, etc.  Their first assignment is to take theory and apply 
it to a popular text of their choosing.  The point is that they are learning 
difficult cultural THEORY, not just enjoying a film every week.

I was re-reading Janice Radway's study on romance reading for class this 
week and her article seems appropriate here.  She reminds us that people 
derive *pleasure* from popular culture.  Echoing sentiments made earlier, it 
is WAY more difficult to get students to critique popular culture than it is 
to have them do a close reading of classical literature.  It is much harder 
to turn an analytical eye to something we enjoy than it is to be a distanced 
critical thinker.

As someone who grew up on a diet of soap operas and music videos because I 
was a "latchkey kid" (two parents working, mom doing shift work and needed 
to sleep in the afternoons...), I can tell you that "the kids are all 
alright", and can go on to become intelligent, articulate critics of the 
popular culture they consume.


Jennifer


************************************************************
Jennifer Musial
PhD Candidate - School of Women's Studies
Collective Member - Centre for Women and Trans People at York
York University
Toronto, Ontario  M3J 1P3
************************************************************ 

Marge Piercy has put her finger on something we have been dancing around here:

"I also get alarmed at the frequent use 
of videos in place of books in classrooms, however.  One time when I was a 
visiting lecturer for a semester, I assigned a book a week and by the 4th 
week I had a revolt on my hands."

Many of us veteran teachers have made accommodations to students' resistance to reading we would have found appalling  in the early years  of our teaching careers. 

Karen Bojar
Professor of English
Coordinator of Women's Studies Program 
Community College of Philadelphia
1700 Spring Garden Street       
Philadelphia, PA 19130
kbojar  AT  ccp.edu
 

If people are assigning films instead of books as
"accommodations," that's one issue.  (Though I would
argue that sometimes you have to do what you have to
do to reach your students.  I have taught community
college classes to students, many of whom are nearly
illiterate.  What am I to do in that case?  Fail the
class?  I don't have the power to do that and keep my
teaching position.  So I do include films, as well,
and teach students the same concepts and skills that
way.  This provides a point of access for some
students, and a way to apply what we've been learning
to their "real lives," which are lived in the popular
culture, for others.)

But then, in other cases, lots of us assign films
instead of books because in our classes, the films are
the texts.  I generally ask my literary genres class
to analyze a play or a film (they choose - this is
after we've read and analyzed a couple of plays and
viewed and analyzed one film as a class); those who
pick the film watch it over and over and take copious
notes.  I've gone to a local coffeeshop at midnight to
grade papers and run into my students doing just this
on their laptops.  So I know that they are developing
a critical eye and working hard to write the kind of
analysis I'm asking for.

I too, however, have encountered a resistance to
reading.  In my experience, it has helped a lot if I
choose texts that I really enjoy reading, myself.  I
also think that we have to adapt our teaching
approaches in order to teach students who are
unaccustomed to reading and who may need help.  That
doesn't have to mean shorter or fewer books (depending
on the population), but it might mean teaching reading
skills and strategies as an integral part of the
course.

Jessica Nathanson

In creating Buffy, Joss Whedon has said that he wanted
to offer a heroine who was an antidote to all of the
women who kept getting killed off in horror and
slasher films - a strong female character who would
always survive.  And, regardless of whatever
criticisms you might have of the show, that's what he
did (Buffy wasn't the only strong female character,
either).  Further, the strong male characters were
thoughtful, feminist men.  The show also had a
decidedly pro-gay bent, giving us one of the first
lesbian relationships - if not THE first - in a show
of this kind (the relationship lasted for a few
seasons).  (I have criticisms of how exactly he did
this, but basically, we got a loving relationship
between two women and we saw it develop over a couple
of years.  Not bad.)

If you read interviews with the cast and with Whedon,
you will find that they worked very hard and very
deliberately to produce a show that was feminist,
antihomophobic, and antiracist.  If you look at the
characters and themes and story arcs, you will see
this mission reflected clearly.

It's pretty difficult for anyone who watched the show
over the course of its production to so easily dismiss
it as antifeminist pop culture.

(For what it's worth, I'm an interdisciplinary WS
scholar.  I teach both Social Science and Humanities
courses in Women's and Gender Studies.  And my 
research combines Sociology, History, Literature, and
Popular Culture.  No divide here.)

Jessica Nathanson

Dr. Jessica Nathanson
Visiting Assistant Professor
English and Gender Studies
Augustana College
janathanson  AT  yahoo.com
nathanson  AT  augie.edu

I've found that a very useful way to start off a class or unit in
popular culture is with bell hooks's video lecture on the topic titled
"Cultural Criticism and Transformation."  She begins with the question
(why study popular culture?) and moves into all the areas that have
been discussed on this list so far, using film snippets to illustrate
her points.  Whether or not you like hooks, this lecture will serve
you.  A particularly valuable aspect is that she opens up the racist
facets of popular culture, so be prepared to help students over the
"white wall" in your deconstruction of the film.  If your university
library doesn't have it, you can get it from another via interlibrary
loan.  I got it from Cal State Univesity, Chico.  If anyone wants to
see my notes on the film before deciding to find it, feel free to
contact me offlist.

Anne D'Arcy, Ph.D.
CSUC (retired)

When I was working on my Ph.D. I often had 2 books a week to read, and 
unlike many of my peers, I actually read all the books. Others joked 
about techniques for reading first and last paragraphs. Our undergrad 
students take 4-5 classes a semester, not the 2 (and at most 3) I took 
at the doctoral at the U of MN. If they're English or History majors, 
their reading load is especially heavy. Some professors here still try 
to teach a book a week, but if students are taking 2-3 English classes, 
it can mount up to 2-3 books a week. What kind of reading enjoyment or 
absorption can be accomplished when they're racing through readings? Not 
too long after I got my PhD I started "mellowing out" with regards to 
the number of books I teach.

I think it's fair and respectful to our students to moderate our zest 
for piling it on. Many of my students work 30-40 hours a week, some have 
children. For instance, in a junior-level class I'm teaching on 
multicultural literature, we're reading 6 single-author books and 1 
anthology. We're just finishing with Bernard Malamud's stunning "The 
Fixer"--I've allowed 2 weeks on this--the second day of the second week 
we'll finish it up then watch "Unfinished Business" about the 
incarceration of Japanese in WWII....this in preparation for reading 
John Okada's "No No Boy." Using this documentary to help set the context 
seems like a good idea to me--I use documentaries quite a lot, as there 
are many excellent ones out there.....Then on to Gayl Jones's 
"Corregidora"--this is a tough novel, but it's short (thank goodness!)

It's awful to dumb down one's reading assignments. It's also not right 
to put our students under a too-heavy reading load that promotes a kind 
of learning that skips across the service r/t delving into the 
depths--that takes time, time to read, time to discuss, time to reflect, 
time to write about...

my 2 cents,
jane

Jane Olmsted, Director
Women's Studies Program
Associate Professor, English
Western Kentucky University

Karen Bojar wrote:

>Marge Piercy has put her finger on something we have been dancing around here:

In response to this conversation, I started a blog (yes, I know there 
are thousands these days) on teaching popular culture:

http://teachingpopularculture.blogspot.com

There's only a few posts and resources up right now, but I would 
welcome any co-bloggers, guest posts, or other contributions.  I think 
it's really important to have a public forum to discuss and share 
resources, across disciplines, and hope to see your comments and 
thoughts.

Please send any suggestions or possible posts to teachpopculture (at) 
gmail (dot) com

Thanks,

Jackie