Instructors:

Edward Larkey Office ACIV 129, ext. 2104 , email: larkey@umbc.edu
Office Hours: Wed. 3 pm, TuTh 4 pm.

Jack Sinnigen Office ACIV 133, ext. 2149 email sinnigen@umbc.edu.
Office Hours W 7:00-800pm, Th 5:45-6:45pm

In this course we examine the economic, social and political forces which condition cultural production and reproduction. Initially we establish a theoretical framework by focusing on the ways in which social class, race, gender, nation, and the international order contribute to the formation of culture. Next we study specific cases in Central America, Europe, the
United States, and Mexico.

Required books should be on sale in the UMBC Bookstore. All other texts will be available in xerox copies on reserve in the MMC. Students should make personal copies of all the xeroxed articles since we will be referring to them in class.

Texts
Books on sale at the UMBC Bookstore
Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. The Communist Manifesto.
Fanon, Frantz. Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington.
(chapters: "Concerning Violence" and ""n National Culture")
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. NY: Hartcourt, 1929.
Burgos-Debray, Elizabeth, ed. I, Rigoberta Menchú. Trans. Ann Wright.
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate.

Xeroxed chapters and articles (On reserve in MMC)
Wallerstein, Immanuel. "Culture as the Ideological Battleground of the Modern World- System." In Mike Featherstone, Global Culture. London: Sage, 1990.

Mahar, et al "The Basic Theoretical Position." Chapter 1 of Richard Harker, et al, An Introduction to the Work of Pierre Bourdieu. New York: St. Martins, 1990.

Bourdieu, Pierre. "The production of belief: contribution to an economy of symbolic goods." From Richard Collins et al, Media, Culture and Society. London: Sage, 1986.

West, Cornel. Race Matters. Bostor: Beacon, 1993. Preface, Intro, and "Beyond Affirmative Action." Selections from Cineaste and The Black Scholar on Do the Right Thing.

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." In Visual and Other Pleasures. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1989.

Moi, Toril. "Appropriating Bourdieu: Feminist Theory and Pierre Bourdieu's Sociology of Culture." New Literary History 22 (1991): 1017-19.

*Smith, Anthony D. The Ethnic Origins of Nations (chapters 2, 6, 7).

García Canclini, Nestor. Hybrid Cultures. Selections.

Huntington, Samuel. "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs. Summer 1993.

Chomsky, Noam. Year 501. (chapters 1, 2, 3).

Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Intro and chapters 1, 2, 3.

West, Cornel. "Black Culture and Postmodernism."

hooks, bell. "Postmodern Blackness." West and hooks are both in Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon. A Postmodern Reader. NY: SUNY P, 1993.

D'Souza, Dinesh. "Travels with Rigoberta." In The Illiberal Education. NY: The Free Press, 1991.

Giroux, Henry. "Border Pedagogy and the Politics of Postmodernism." Social Text 28 (1991).

Jameson, Fredric. "World Literature in an Age of Multinational Capitalism." In Clayton Koelb and Virgil Lokke, eds., The Current in Criticism. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue UP: 1987.

Selected texts on Europe.

Additional short texts may be added.

Recommended: Gibaldi, Joseph and Walter S. Achtert. MLA Handbook for
Writers of Research Papers.

Schedule

2/3. Introduction.

2/10. Wallerstein.

2/17. Social Class. Marx and Engels; Mahar; Bourdieu.

2/24.Race. Fanon; West (Race Matters). See Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee (available on video) before class. Selected readings on Do the Right Thing.

Submit suggested topic for paper with a two or three sentence explanation.

3/3. Gender. Woolf; Mulvey; Moi.. [Guest Lecture:, Jaqueline Berndt, Prof. of Sociology of Art, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. Tentative Topic: Gender Discourse, the Visual Arts and Manga in Japanese Popular Culture]

3/10. Nation. Smith; García Canclini.

3/17. Postmodernism. Harvey; West ("Black Culture"); hooks.

Submit paper proposal (one to two pages). Distribution of take-home exam.

3/24. Spring break.

3/31. International Order. Huntington; Chomsky.

4/7. Introduction to Central America.

Group discussions of proposals.

4/9. Hand in Exams

4/14. Central America. Burgos.

4/21. Europe.

4/28. Multiculturalism. D'Souza, Giroux, Jameson.

5/5. Esquivel; see film Like Water for Chocolate.

5/12. Final presentations

5/19. Final presentations

5/21. Submit final papers.

Requirements and grades.

Take-home exam. 35%
Co-direct one seminar session. 20%
Final project (10-15 page paper and 10 minute oral presentation). 45%

Papers should follow MLA guidelines.

MLL 603 "notebook": During the first part of this course a somewhat wide
range of complex theoretical concepts will be introduced. These concepts
will then be recycled in two ways: 1. The exam will require that you be
able to summarize and apply them; 2. For the final paper you will need to
select appropriate concepts as the theoretical framework. Therefore you
will need to keep a notebook in which you summarize and explain these
concepts to yourself in your own words (vs. stand-alone quotes). You will
occasionally be required to hand in a copy of your summary. The
instructors will review the summaries but will not grade them. Therefore,
we recommend you do the summaries in a computer file, a convenient means of
recording and reviewing your ideas, and of producing copies. You would,
then, have 2 "notebooks" for this class, a paper notebook for class notes
and a computer file.