Communication 6001
Introduction to Graduate Studies in Communication
Spring 2004
Prof. Gil Rodman
Office Hours: Tu 4-6p and by appointment
CIS 3040 // 974-3025 // gbrodman@mindspring.com
course description and objectives
Communication is an oddly hybrid field of study. At some institutions, communication research involves surveys and statistics and other quantitative methods; elsewhere, the study of communication involves ethnography, textual analysis, and other forms of qualitative research. Some communication programs are very much geared towards professional training (e.g., journalism, broadcasting, advertising); others are more explicitly directed towards scholarly research of one sort or another. Even among more scholarly oriented departments, the field varies a great deal, with some departments firmly situated in the social sciences, while others claim a strong allegiance to the humanities.
Viewed along these axes, our department is pretty firmly situated on the “qualitative” and “scholarly research” end of things . . . but our position with respect to the “social sciences”/“humanities” dichotomy is a bit harder to pin down. If nothing else, the faculty and research areas found in the department come from too varied a range of intellectual traditions to place us squarely and fully within either the humanities or the social sciences. Broadly speaking, though, this half of the introductory course sequence will focus primarily on the sites where the department’s work intersects with the humanities side of the field.
We’ll spend the first half of the course engaged in a mini-survey of major bodies of humanities-based theory as it relates to the study of communication and culture. The second half of the course will revolve around guest visits from most of the humanities-oriented faculty in the department, each of whom will provide us with a selection of readings representative of their respective subfields and major research interests.
As an introductory survey, this course will presumably not transform any of you into fully fluent experts in any of various schools of thought we’ll examine. Nonetheless, by the end of the semester, you should be able to describe the major intellectual and philosophical characteristics of each of these schools of thought, to explain how they differ from one another, and to articulate a basic understanding of what they each have to offer to the study of communication.
required course materials
- Book
John Storey (ed.), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader (2nd edition)
Available at Inkwood Books, 216 S. Armenia, Tampa (253-2638, inkwoodbks@aol.com)
WARNING: If you choose to purchase this book from a source besides Inkwood, you should be extremely careful to make sure that you purchase (a) the correct edition (since the 1st edition contains a different selection of readings than the 2nd) and (b) the correct title (Storey is also the author of a different book with a very similar title (Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction)).
- Photocopied essays
In addition to the Storey book, we’ll read a number of photocopied journal articles and book chapters, some of which will be provided by our faculty visitors later in the semester. We will work out a distribution plan for these readings in class.
- Reliable access to the World Wide Web
All of your written work for this course will be submitted online. As a result, you will not be able to complete the course successfully without being able to access the Web on a consistent basis. If you don’t already have access to the Internet from your home or workplace, you’ll need to make use of either the department’s computer lab or the open-use computer labs on campus.
papers
You will write four papers over the course of the semester as follows:
| Paper #1 |
due 3 Feb |
~1500 words |
| Paper #2 |
due 2 Mar |
~1500 words |
| Paper #3 |
due 6 Apr |
~1500 words |
| Paper #4 |
due 27 Apr |
~2500 words |
Further details about these assignments is available on a separate handout.
Blackboard Discussion Board participation
The primary purpose of the Discussion Board is to provide an informal space that’s always available for discussion of the issues raised by the assigned readings and our class sessions. I expect everyone to participate in these discussions on a regular basis. While there’s no hard and fast rule here for what constitutes “enough” participation, if most of your contributions consist of one-line replies to other people’s longer messages (e.g., “Well said, Pat. Thanks.”) or if more than 7-10 days go by between your posts, you’re probably not pulling your weight here.
Additionally, the Blackboard site may occasionally be used to make important course-related announcements (e.g., “please add everything on the third floor of the USF library to next Tuesday’s reading”) or to pass word on about other topics that may be of interest to the class (e.g., calls for papers, upcoming conferences, recently published articles and books, etc.). So check the site frequently.
grading policy
I’m not a big fan of grades at the graduate level. Presumably, your main reason for being here is that you have a genuine desire to learn something about communication, not whether you can maintain a 4.0 GPA. Assuming you show up for class consistently, participate in our discussions (both in class and online) on a regular basis, and complete the assigned papers in satisfactory fashion, you should get an A. That being said, in cases where people are clearly slacking off, I reserve the right to go deeper into the alphabet when I fill out my final grade sheet (and I’ve actually done so in the past). Under such unfortunate circumstances, your grade will be calculated as follows:
| Attendance/participation |
15% |
| Blackboard Discussion Board participation |
15% |
| Paper #1 |
15% |
| Paper #2 |
15% |
| Paper #3 |
15% |
| Paper #4 |
25% |
January 6
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January 13
Communication, Culture, Civilization
Raymond Williams, “Defining a Democratic Culture”
James Carey, “A Cultural Approach to Communication”
John Durham Peters, “The Problem of Communication”
CT&PC, pp. x-36
January 20
Culturalism, Structuralism
CT&PC, pp. 39-152
Judith Williamson, “A Currency of Signs”
January 27
Poststructuralism, Marxism
CT&PC, pp. 153-259
Bernard Gendron, “Theodor Adorno Meets the Cadillacs”
February 3
Paper #1 due
Feminism, Postmodernism (I)
CT&PC, pp. 263-370
Laura Kipnis, “(Male) Desire and (Female) Disgust: Reading Hustler”
February 10
Postmodernism (II), Popular Culture (I)
CT&PC, pp. 371-475
George Lipsitz, “Cruising Around the Historical Bloc: Postmodernism and Popular Music in East Los Angeles”
February 17
Popular Culture (II)
CT&PC, pp. 476-545
Constance Penley, “Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture”
February 24
Popular Culture (III)
CT&PC, pp. 546-624
Lauren Berlant, “The Face of America and the State of Emergency”
March 2
Paper #2 due
Faculty Guest: Mark Neumann
readings t.b.d.
March 9
NO CLASS -- SPRING BREAK
March 16
Faculty Guest: Michael Levan
readings t.b.d.
March 23
Faculty Guest: Marcy Chvasta
readings t.b.d.
March 30
Faculty Guest: Stacy Holman Jones
readings t.b.d.
April 6
Paper #3 due
Faculty Guest: Elizabeth Bell
readings t.b.d.
April 13
Faculty Guest: Navita James
readings t.b.d.
April 20
Faculty Guest: Janna Jones
readings t.b.d.
April 27
Paper #4 due
Faculty “Guest”: Gil Rodman
readings t.b.d.