Introduction to cultural studies

This course will look at culture, cultural identities, and production politics in various human historical contexts. This course looks at culture as an asymmetrical entanglement of material and abstract traits, therefore it uses political theory, psychology, and critical theory, among other disciplines, to analyze the manufactured categories of identity, knowledge, and authority.

TARGET AUDIENCE: English and Cultural Studies B.A./M.A. students

Course Outline :

The First Week: What Is Culture? Culture and Cultural Identities, Values, and Cultural Studies Lenses
Week 2: Orientalism by Edward Said and ‘The Other Question’ by Homi Bhabha
Week 3: ‘The Other Question’ by Homi Bhabha and ‘Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell
Week 4: George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” and Jean-François Lyotard’s “The Postmodern Condition.”
Week 5: The Postmodern Condition by Lyotard, and Black Ski by Frantz Fanon

Week 5: The Postmodern Condition by Lyotard, and Black Skin White Masks by Frantz Fanon
Week 6: Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks
Week 7: Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt
Week 8: The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault’s ‘What is an Author?’ ’