ENG 281LEC—Special Topics

The content of this course is variable and therefore it is repeatable for credit. The University Grade Repeat Policy does not apply. For example: Prof. D. Schmid, Intro Pop Culture Despite the fact that popular culture plays a large part in the vast majority of ordinary lives, its serious study is still a relatively recent phenomenon in the academy, which has tended to dismiss pop culture as nothing more than mindless, frivolous, even pernicious entertainment. This class will explore why pop culture matters by introducing students to the basic theories and approaches to the scholarly study of popular culture, concentrating in particular on how pop culture helps to create and reflect the zeitgeist of the periods in which it emerges and evolves. We will accomplish these goals by focusing on the theme of violence in American popular culture. From the Puritan period to the present day, Americans have always documented their intense interest in violence through popular culture and we will investigate the history of and reasons for this interest by studying examples taken from a wide variety of genres and subjects. Along the way, we will discuss the distinction between folk, mass, and popular culture; changing definitions of criminality and deviance; manifest destiny; urbanization; the influence of evolving media technologies, and the rise of a celebrity culture organized around criminals, with a primary emphasis on how popular culture gives us insights into the societies of which it is an integral part. This class will be taught in a large lecture format, with small seminar groups each Friday to discuss particular texts. For example: J. Bodway, The Gothic From the success of survival horror video games (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, etc.), to the continued popularity of horror films (Halloween, Saw, etc.), it is not a stretch to say that horror is a business, and its business is good. As a business, horror is an emotion that is manufactured by the images that we see and by the stories that we read. However, these images and stories have a history, and this course will examine how this history has come to shape our understanding. Our investigation will begin with a study of the gothic novel as it emerges at the end of the eighteenth century, then move into the many gothic themes of British and American Romanticism. Gothic literature often blurs the distinction between the physical and the psychological. In addition to our readings, we will examine paintings by such artists as Henry Fuseli, Francisco de Goya, and Gustave Dore. We will end the semester with a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s rendition of The Shining; a tour de force of gothic cinema.