CLST 201.002: Introduction to Cultural Studies

On September 26, 1849, Edgar Allen Poe–a native and occasional resident of Baltimore–left Richmond by boat to deliver a lecture in New York. One week later, on October 3, Poe was discovered with his moustache shaved off and wearing secondhand clothes in Ryan’s Tavern (near what is now Little Italy) in a half-conscious state and taken to Washington Hospital (North of Fells Point). After periods of intermittent lucidity, he died on October 7. What happened during those elusive five days? Various theories have been proposed: a massive drinking binge, a vicious kidnapping, a concerted murder plot, rabies-induced delirium. But the real mystery of Poe’s death is the city itself. That is, the city’s concatenation of people and spaces can render even someone like Poe (who was even then well-known in literary circles) anonymous and hidden. We can literally not find him for those five days. The city makes people into strangers (a la Simmel) and spaces into twisted labyrinths "black as subterranean lairs" (James Thomson). Shorn from the mechanical solidarity of the small community where people know each other all too well, people in cities are by definition enigmatic, problems to be organized by the State, by capital, by space and time, by race, class, gender, ethnicity and nationality.

Like Dupin, Poe’s archetypal detective, we cannot solve this mystery without bringing to bear both the empirical and the hermeneutic. It is, after all, Dupin’s eclectic application of science, psychology and poetry combined with his attentiveness to the newspapers (a trait that Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes would also share) that allows him to succeed where the police--mere technocrats following procedure--have failed. The city--as a threshold upon which the uncanny (unheimlich) and quotidian meet–resists any single-order explanations; we will not find its truth in economics, sociology or literature taken by themselves. As Walter Benjamin writes,

                                For histrionic or fanatical stress on the mysterious side of the mysterious takes us

This is where Cultural Studies comes in. It is here where, following Benjamin’s peculiar dialectic, a discussion of psychology might become geographic, where–in the space of analysis–the poetic may lead us to politics and anthropology. In this class, we will explore Cultural Studies through the unfolding of the city. It is, after all, only within the context of the city that what we call Cultural Studies can flourish and it is only in the context of Cultural Studies’ interdisciplinarity and relentless populism that the enigmatic city can be articulated.

Required Texts

Low, Setha. 2001. On the Plaza: the Politics of Public Space and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Titchener, Louise. Homebody. http://www.mysteriousbaltimore.homestead.com

Walkowitz, Judith. 1992. City of Dreadful Delight. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Attendance 20%

Midterm 20%

Assignment #1 20%

Assignment #2 20%

Final 20%

Homework extra credit

 

1). attendance: Attendance in this course is required. Here’s how it works: students begin the course with an "A" in attendance and participation but, for each class missed, lose a "grade step" (e.g., A to A_, C+ to C). However: each student can miss two "grace classes" before being penalized.  Absences due to illness or emergencies may be excused, but only if accompanied by documentation.

2). homework: At various times throughout the semester, I will assign homework based on class readings, films and discussions. Select out-of-class activities may also be occasionally assigned.  Students may complete the homework for extra credit on the midterm and final exam.

3). Assignments #1 and #2: (Due November 5 and December 3, respectively)  The Baltimore Project

The Arcades Project (Der Passagen-Werk) occupied Walter Benjamin from 1927 until his untimely death in 1940, but he never finished it. What remains is a vast and byzantine evocation of the urban past, the commodified present and the utopian future; reading his work is a strange, "threshold experience" combining surrealist evocation with political economy, historical critique and aesthetic transcendence.

In these assignments, students will try to approximate something of Benjamin’s style in their vignettes of urban life and urban space, i.e., to construe the city as a ruin that can tell us something of the failures of the past and the possibility for a redemptive future. By examining the spaces, the buildings and the people, students will weave together "intertexts" that, through this montage, might tell us something about living in Baltimore in the twenty-first century.

                    a). Read selections from The Arcades Project (http://www.othervoices.org/gpeaker/Passagenwerk.html).

b). Choose two interesting places and describe, draw and map them. 40 pts.

c). Write two journal entries (3 pages total) where, like Benjamin, you try to link together disparate observations and texts into something that reveals, critiques and reconstructs what you’ve observed. 40 pts.

4). midterm exam: (October 15) The midterm exam will test both your reading knowledge and your understanding of class discussions and activities through a battery of short answer questions.

5). final exam: (December 15) Our final exam will ask you to apply the ideas you've culled from readings, lectures, films and discussions and apply them to new or novel situations in an extended essay format.

Your final grade will be computed by adding together the following point values for graded assignments and examinations:

Attendance: 40 points

Homework: extra credit

Midterm Exam:40 points

Assignment #1: 40 points

Assignment #2: 40 points

Final Exam: 40 points

A+    186+

A-    180-185

B+    174-179

B      166-173

B-     160-165

C+    154-159

C       146-153

C-     140-145

D+     134-139

D       120-133

F        <120

Class Schedule

Week 1 (8/27) Introduction to Class.

Week 2 (9/3) The Nature of Culture

--History and Etymology of the Concept

--Definitions of Culture (literary, anthropological, etc.)

--History of Cultural Studies

Reading Assignment: Walkowitz, pp. 1-14

Week 3 (9/8-9/10) The Urban Flaneur

–Film: "The Sign of Four" (1988, with Jeremy Brett)

Reading Assignment: Doyle, "The Sign of Four"

SEPTEMBER 9: Last day to add/ Last day to drop without a ‘W’

Week 4 (9/15-9/17) Ethnographer and Spectator

Reading Assignment: Low, pp. 3-30; Walkowitz, pp. 15-40

Week 5 (9/22-9/24) Culture and Power

--Ideology and Hegemony

Reading Assignment: Low, 31-45; Walkowitz, pp. 41-80

–Film: "Metropolis" (orig. 1927)

Week 6 (9/29-10/1) Culture and History

--Political Economy

Reading Assignment: Low, pp. 47-83

Week 7 (10/6-10/8) Cities, Spaces and Popular Culture

--Public spaces/private spaces

--Public sphere

Reading Assignment: Low, pp. 84-123

Week 8 (10/13-10/15) Critical Theory

--Ideology

Reading Assignment: Walkowitz, 81-134

–Film: "From Hell" (2001)

October 15: MIDTERM EXAMINATION

Week 9 (10/20-10/22) Mass Culture

--Consumption, Advertising, Manufactured Consent, Fast Food

--Globalization

Reading Assignment: Low, pp. 127-179

–Film: "Nashville" (1975)

Week 10 (10/27-10/29) Mass Culture and Gender

Reading Assignment: Walkowitz, pp. 171-228

Titchener, selections TBA

Week 11 (11/3-11/5) Resistance and the Subaltern

Reading Assignment: Low, pp. 180-206

NOVEMBER 7: LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW WITH A ‘W’

NOVEMBER 5: ASSIGNMENT #1 DUE, BEGINNING OF CLASS

Week 12 (11/10-11/12) The Psychoanalytic

Reading Assignment: Walkowitz, 229-246

Week 13 (11/17-11/19) Film and the City

–Film: "The Man With a Movie Camera" (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

Week 14 (11/24) The modernist City

Reading Assignment: Low, pp. 154-179

-November 26-30: Thanksgiving break

Week 15 (12/1-12/3) The postmodern City

Reading Assignment: Low, pp. 207-218

Titchener, selections TBA

DECEMBER 3: ASSIGNMENT #2 DUE, BEGINNING OF CLASS

Week 16 (12/8-12/10) The future city/ future culture

Reading Assignment: Low, pp. 238-247

–Film: "Metropolis" (Rin Taro, 2002)

December 12: LAST DAY OF CLASSES

December 15, 3 pm: FINAL EXAMINATION

1. Although exams and graded work will remain as stated above, I may have to change different

readings or films on the syllabus throughout the semester. I will, in any case, try to give you

ample warning of any syllabus changes.

2. Each student is required to become familiar with the University’s

rules regarding cheating and plagiarism (Towson University Undergraduate Catalog, Appendix

F). Neither will be tolerated in my class and will result in a flunking grade.

3. Students with learning disabilities should register at the Disability Support Services Office.

explanation of grading

Consistent with University policy, the following grades will be assigned according to the designated criteria:

A: A superior performance surpassing assigned work in unique and novel ways and

integrating diverse ideas from a wide range of sources in addition to those discussed in class.

A-

B+

B: Excellent work surpassing the expectations of the assignment and demonstrating initiative

and a willingness to move beyond the basic requirements of the assigned work.

B-

C+

C: Satisfactory work meeting all basic requirements of the assignment.

C-

D+

D: Work in some way less than satisfactory. Although conforming to basic requirements in

some way, the completed work is nevertheless not a coherent response to the

assignment.

F: A profoundly unsatisfactory performance which doesn't meet

the intent of the assignment at any level.