301: Performance, Language, and Cultural Studies

Course Syllabus
We will try to stick as close to this schedule as possible. It is expected that readings will be finished on the date assigned. Due Dates for assignments and exam dates will not be changed. Missed assignments or exercises cannot be made up and will receive a "0".
Aug 26: Course Introduction

UNIT I: Theories of Performance, Practices of Language

Aug 28: An Anthropology of Performance: Some Definitions.

Aug 30: An Anthropology of Performance (continued)

Dwight Conquergood, "Review Essay: Poetics, Play, Process, and Power: The Performative Turn in Anthropology"

Turn in Forms for Class Reading Assignments

Sept 2: LABOR DAY - NO CLASSES

Sept 4: Ethnographic Research and Performance Studies

Dwight Conquergood, "Performing as a Moral Act"

Sept 6: Roots of Performance Studies

Sept 9: Performance and Political Power

Augusto Boal, "Poetics of the Oppressed"

Sept. 11: Performance and Political Power (Continued)

EXERCISE: Go to a shopping mall after reading the Gibian essay; write down your reactions and post them to HyperNews.

Sept 13: Ethnography By Example: Things to do with Shopping Malls

Peter Gibian, "The Art of Being Off-Center"

Reading Assignments Handed out

Group Assignments Handed out

Sept 16: Ethnography By Example: Hard Bodies

Stuart Ewen, "Hard Bodies"
Kathy Acker, "Against Ordinary Language: The Language of the Body"

EXERCISE: Visit a Gym and comment on Ewen and Acker's observations. Post your reactions to HyperNews.

Sept 18: Hard Bodies (Continued)

Sept 20: Performance and the Everyday: Performing Race

Thomas Nakayama, "Dis/Orienting Identities: Asian Americans, History, and Intercultural Communication

Sept 23: CLASS CANCELLED (Yom Kippur)

Sept 25: Performance and the Everyday: Street Performance and Gang Culture

Léon Bing, "Faro"
Anne Campbell, "The Praised and the Damned"
Maasik and Solomon, "Signs of the Street: A Conversation"
Vigil, "Gang Styles"

Panel Discussion:

Sept 27: Performance and the Not-So-Everyday: Alternative Sexualities

Eduardo Santiago, "The Night Rodney King Kissed Me"
Billy Jean Jones, "Genderflex"
Cliff Arnesen, "Coming Out to Congress"

Panel Discussion:

UNIT II: Cultural Studies

Sept 30: What is Cultural Studies?

James Carey, "Overcoming Resistance to Cultural Studies"

Oct 2: Culture and Subculture: Some Preliminary Orientations

Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, 1-19

Oct 4: Culture and Power: The Performance of Subcultural Identity

Hebdige, 23-45

Oct 7: Culture and Power: The Analysis of Subcultural Identity

Hebdige, 46-70

Oct 9: Culture and Power: Reading Strategies

Hebdige, 73-89

Oct. 11: Culture and Power: Subculture and "Style"

Hebdige, 90-112

Oct 14: Culture and Power: Conclusion

Hebdige,113-end

Panel Discussion:

Oct 16: Subculture and the Question of Style: Resistance or Commodification?

Elizabeth Wilson, "Oppositional Dress"

Panel Discussion:

Oct 18: EXAM I

Oct 21: Culture, Power, and Resistance: The Role of Political Economy

Tom Frank, "Dark Age: Why Johnny Can't Dissent"

Panel Discussion:

Oct 23: Culture, Power, and Resistance: The Role of Mass Media

Tom Vanderbilt, "The Advertised Life"

Panel Discussion:

Oct 25: Discussion of Frank and Vanderbilt

Oct 28: Culture, Power, and Resistance: The Role of Mass Media (cont.)

Michael Parenti, "The Myth of Cultural Democracy"

Oct 30: Parenti Discussion

Nov 1: Culture, Power, and Resistance: Disney as Case Study

Pauline Uchmanowicz, "Babes in Toyland"

Panel Discussion:

UNIT III: Cultural Hierarchy and the Performance of Struggle: Case Studies

Nov 4: Race Reconsidered: The Postcolonial Perspective

Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, "White Power: The Colonial Situation"

Panel Discussion:

Nov 6: Musical Performance and Cultural Struggle: Rap Music as Case Study

Kristal Brent Zook, "Reconstructions of Nationalist Thought in Black Music and Culture"
Imani Perry, "It's My Thang And I'll Swing It the Way I Feel"
Tricia Rose, "Fear of a Black Planet"

Panel Discussion:

Nov 8: Musical Performance and Cultural Struggle II: Madonna as Case Study

Pat Califia, "Sex and Madonna, or, What Did you Expect from a Girl Who Doesn't Put Out on the First Five Dates?"

Panel Discussion:

Nov. 11: Sexuality, History, and Cultural Struggle

Gayle S. Rubin, "Thinking Sex"

Panel Discussion:

Nov. 13: Sexuality, History, and Cultural Struggle (continued)

Nov. 15: SECOND EXAM

Nov 18: Los Angeles as Text: An Urban Ethnography of Downtown L.A.

Alexander Cockburn, "On the Rim of the Pacific Century"

Panel Discussion:

Nov 20: Los Angeles As Text Continued

Mike Davis, "Chinatown Revisited?"
Mike Davis, "The Empty Quarter"

Nov 22: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS BEGIN

INTERACTIVE STUDY GUIDE EXERCISE DUE

Nov 25: CLASS CANCELLED

Nov 27: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Nov 29: THANKSGIVING VACATION - No Class Meeting

Dec 2: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Dec 4: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

FINAL WRITTEN PRESENTATION DUE

IF STUDENT PRESENTATIONS ARE NOT COMPLETED BY DECEMBER 4TH, WE WILL USE THE SCHEDULED FINAL EXAM DAY TO FINISH THEM.

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