 TEACHING
Media, Culture and Communication: Theory and Research
E38.2001.001
Fall 2006
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Class Time: Tues 7:15pm - 9:25pm
Class Location: 25 West 4th Street, Room C-18
Office Hours: Tues/Thurs by appointment
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This course examines core theoretical approaches to the study of media
and communication. It provides students with an historical and critical
overview of theory and research on communication, everyday social
practices, systems of representation, and media environments.
SYLLABUS
September 5 — Course Introduction
September 12 — Theories of Communication
John Durham Peters, "The Problem of Communication" (Reader).
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, pp. 1-23, 65-78 (Reader).
Vilém Flusser, "On the Theory of Communication" (Reader).
September 13, 6:30pm — Speaker: Robert Venturi
"40 Years of 'Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture'"
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall, Columbia University
September 19 — Theories of Communication (continued)
Plato, Phaedrus (Reader).
John Durham Peters, "Dialogue and Eros in the Phaedrus" (Reader).
September 26 — Media & Technology
Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology" (Reader).
Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message" (Media and Cultural Studies).
Marshall McLuhan, "Playboy Interview" (Reader).
October 3 — Globalization of Communication
Armand Mattelart, Networking the World, 1794-2000
October 10 — The Public Sphere
Guest Professor: Rod Benson
Jürgen Habermas, "The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article" (Media and Cultural Studies).
Pierre Bourdieu, "(i) Introduction; (ii) The Aristocracy of Culture" (Media and Cultural Studies).
Pierre Bourdieu, "On Television" (Media and Cultural Studies).
Rodney Benson, "Field Theory In Comparative Context."
Craig Calhoun, "Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere."
October 16, 6pm — Speaker: Donna Haraway (UC Santa Cruz)
"Companion Species in Science Studies: We Have Never Been Human"
Greenberg Lounge, Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Washington Square South
October 17 — Modernity
Karl Marx, "The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret" (Reader).
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" (Media and Cultural Studies).
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, "Constituents of a Theory of the Media" (Reader).
October 24 — Modernity (continued)
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (Media and Cultural Studies).
Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (Media and Cultural Studies).
October 26-28 — Take home exam
October 26, 6:30pm — Speaker: Judith Butler (UC Berkeley)
"Torture, Photography, and the Limits of the Secular"
Jurow Hall, Silver Center, 100 Washington Square East
October 31 — Place, Space, and Form
Robert Venturi, Learning From Las Vegas
Michel Foucault, "Of Other Spaces" (Reader).
November 7 — Media Consumption and Articulation
Stuart Hall, "Encoding/decoding" (Media and Cultural Studies).
Janice Radway, "From Reading the Romance" (Reader).
Fredric Jameson, "Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture" (Reader).
November 14 — Theories of Identity
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" (Media and Cultural Studies).
Angela McRobbie, "Feminism, Postmodernism and the 'Real Me'" (Media and Cultural Studies).
November 21 — Cybernetics & Information Theory
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, pp. 1-29 (Reader).
Warren Weaver, "Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication" (Reader).
Mark Poster, "Postmodern Virtualities" (Media and Cultural Studies).
November 28 — New Media
Lev Manovich, "What is New Media?" (Reader).
Lisa Nakamura, "Menu-Driven Identities: Making Race Happen Online" (Reader).
December 5 — The Medium of "Life Itself"
Eugene Thacker, "What is Biomedia?" (Reader).
Donna Haraway, "Gene: Maps and Portraits of Life Itself" (Reader).
December 8-10 — Take home exam
REQUIREMENTS & GRADING
Reading: Thorough coverage of the week's required reading in advance of
class is of utmost importance. Readings should be brought to class for
discussion.
Discussion: Students will rotate leading discussion. The week's
discussion leader(s) will email me reading notes (one page maximum) on
or before the Sunday prior to class, and I will redistribute them to all
students. Each student will lead discussion twice during the semester.
Examinations: The course contains both midterm and final examinations.
Each exam is take-home and lasts for twenty-four hours. The format of
each exam consists of written responses to two questions, totaling 8-10
pages. All exam answers should demonstrate a close reading of the
required texts and exhibit a method of critical analysis.
Grade Formula
Midterm exam 40%
Final exam 40%
Class participation 20%
REQUIRED MATERIALS
Course Reader.
Durham & Kellner (Eds.), Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks.
Armand Mattelart, Networking the World, 1794-2000.
Robert Venturi, Learning From Las Vegas.
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