Overview
This course introduces you to the field of cultural studies and covers two bodies of literature: the critical and scholarly work of cultural studies and the mass-produced entertainments of popular culture. To understand the critical readings in this course, you must recognize and appreciate your watching skills, and unpack the assumptions and habits they make invisible. Not only must you learn to read popular culture but you must relearn and become self-conscious of the skill sets you have internalized. Reading both the critical and the entertaining is a balancing act this course will help you perform well.
Outline
Part 1: Cultural Theory: Alternative Approaches and Key Concepts
- Unit 1: Alternative Approaches to Cultural Studies: Frankfurt, Birmingham, Toronto, and Annales
- Unit 2: Marxism and Cultural Theory: Culture as Product
- Unit 3: More Cultural Theory: Hegemony, Power, Engineering Consent, and Archetypes
Part 2: Culture as Product: The Dialectic between Creativity and Profit
- Unit 4: The Business of Culture
- Unit 5: Rock Music as Creative Product: The Rise and Fall of a Genre?
- Unit 6: Star Power and Journeys to the Stars
Part 3: Visual Culture: Remediated Media, and Graphic Genres
- Unit 7: Genres, Zombies, and Fandom
- Unit 8: Remediation: From Comic to Graphic Novel and Beyond
- Unit 9: Television as Ritual: Information, Reality, and Ideology in Game Shows, Talk Shows, and News
Part 4: Reinforcing our Prejudices? Gender, Apocalypse, Pulp, Pornography, and the Internet
- Unit 10: Constructing Subjects: Femininity, Masculinity, and the Social Construction of Gender
- Unit 11: Visions of the Future: Heroes, Utopias, Dystopias, and the Apocalypse
- Unit 12: Varieties of Commercial Art: Low, High, National, and Global
- Unit 13: The Internet: Sex, Social Media, and Narrow-Casting
Evaluation
To receive credit for CMNS 358, you must receive 50 percent on the final exam and achieve a course composite grade of at least D (50 percent) to pass course. The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:
| Activity | Weight |
| Crosswords/Self Tests (13) | 13% |
| Assignment 1 | 17% |
| Assignment 2 | 20% |
| Assignment 3 | 25% |
| Final Exam | 25% |
| Total | 100% |
The final examination for this course must be requested in advance and written under the supervision of an AU-approved exam invigilator. Invigilators include either ProctorU or an approved in-person invigilation centre that can accommodate online exams. Students are responsible for payment of any invigilation fees. Information on exam request deadlines, invigilators, and other exam-related questions, can be found at the Exams and grades section of the Calendar.
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Longhurst, Brian, and Danijela Bogdanović. Popular Music and Society. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014.
Physical course materials
The following course materials are included in a course package that will be shipped to your home prior to your course’s start date:
Fiske, John. Television Culture. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2011.
Moore, Alan, and David Lloyd. V for Vendetta. New York: Vertigo, 1998/2005.
Online Materials
Online materials include a course information file, a student manual, and an extensive study guide covering all the units of the course. Required reading assignments (other than from the textbooks) are available online through the course digital reading room.
Library Materials
Required viewing and listening materials other than those referred to above can be borrowed from the Athabasca University Library.
Challenge for credit
Overview
The challenge for credit process allows you to demonstrate that you have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university-level course.
Full information about challenge for credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.
Evaluation
To receive credit for the CMNS 358 challenge registration, you must achieve a grade of at least D (50 percent) on the examination.
| Activity | Weight |
| Part 1: Exam | 50% |
| Part 2: Exam | 50% |
| Total | 100% |
Challenge for credit course registration form