feminist analysis
Order Description
Creative Project. Create a poem, song, piece of art, short film or anything else that elaborates a theme from this class.
Examines constructions of gender and sexuality in popular culture. Feminist analysis of the ways in which social relations of gender, race and sexuality have been conceptualized and experienced in relation to the institutions, technologies, practices and representations of popular culture.
please read carefully the hyperlink below
read the book Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay
. Introduction: course themes, syllabus, expectations.
Does pop culture matter? Questions we will be asking. What moves you? Are we bad feminists if we like pop culture?
Reading:
Roxanne Gay, “Feminism (n): Plural”
Video: The Movement
May 3rd:
2. What is popular culture? What are “representations” and “narratives?” Understanding Cultural Appropriation
Reading:
Sarah Hunt, “An Open Letter to my Local Hipsters” HYPERLINK "https://www.mediaindigena.com/sarah-hunt/issues-and-politics/an-open-letter-to-my-local-hipsters" https://www.mediaindigena.com/sarah-hunt/issues-and-politics/an-open-letter-to-my-local-hipsters
Stuart Hall, “The Spectacle of the Other.”
Video: Taylor Swift Shake it Off, Britney Spears Slumber Party The 1491s “I’m an Indian Too”
Video: bell hooks, “Eating the Other”
3. Capitalism and Culture: It’s all about the money!
Reading:
Susie O’Brien, Imre Szeman, Popular Culture: A User’s Guide, Chapter Four, “The Production of Popular Culture”
Film clip: Crazy, Stupid, Love
Video: Ariana Grande, Side to Side
Film: Killing Us Softly 4
4. Feminist Cultural Critique: Intersectional Critique and the Feminist Killjoy
Reading:
Sara Ahmed, “Feminist Killjoys”
Katie Milestone & Anneke Meyer, “Representing Women”
Roxanne Gay, “How to Be Friends with Another Woman,” “Girls, Girls, Girls”
Music and Video: Miley Cyrus Wrecking Ball, Nicki Minaj Anaconda
Video: Sometimes You’re a Caterpillar
Spoken Word: Denise Frohman, “Accents”
**Your Problematic Fave Assignment Due in Class
5. From Beyonce to #BlackLivesMatter: Black Culture and Black Resistance
Readings:
bell hooks, “Gansta Culture—Sexism and Misogyny: Who will take the rap?” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation, Chapter 7.
Roxanne Gay, “The Politics of Respectability,” “A Tale of Two Profiles”
Video: W. Kamau Bell “How do you know it was Racism?”
Film/Video: Beyonce, Formation, clips from Lemonade
6. Love, Sex, Violence and Popular Culture
J. Jack Halberstam, from Gaga Feminism
Dean Spade, “For Lovers and Fighters”
Jill Filipovic, “Offensive Feminism: The Conservative Gender Norms that Perpetuate Rape Culture, and How Feminists Can Fight Back” from Yes Means Yes
Roxanne Gay, “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence”
Web series: Unicornland
Film: Vivek Shraya, What I LOVE about being QUEER
Film: from Friends With Benefits
Video: Carrie Underwood, “Before He Cheats”, Beyonce “Hold Up”
Guest Lecture: Meg Peters
7. What’s “Normal” I: Embodiment, Gender, Ability and Representation
Reading:
Eli Clare, “The Mountain” from Exile and Pride
Julia Serrano, “Skirt Chasers: Why the Media Depicts the Trans Revolution in Lipstick and Heels”
Video: Viktoria Modesta, Sick Kids Hospital Video
Video and Discussion: Sins Invalid, HYPERLINK "https://www.sinsinvalid.org/" https://www.sinsinvalid.org/
Krip-Hop: HYPERLINK "https://kriphopnation.com/" https://kriphopnation.com/
Video: Laverne Cox and Janet Mock
June 5th:
8. What’s “Normal” II: Embodiment, Gender, Representation
Guest Lecture: Celeste Orr
9. Prisons and Popular Culture
Reading
Roxanne Gay, “When Less is More”
Film: Visions of Abolition: From Critical Resistance to a New Way of Life
TV: Orange is the New Black
10. Indigenous Cultures in the Time of Standing Rock: Remix and Resistance
Lecture and Discussion: Standing Rock protests and the cultural implications
Film and Art: Kent Monkman
Music and Video: Tribe Called Red, Leanne Simpson, JB the First Lady
**Blog Assignment Due in Class
June 7th:
11. Online Culture WTF!
Online Life and the Impact of Social Media
Reading:
Roxanne Gay, “When Twitter Does What Journalism Cannot”
Lindy West, “I’ve Left Twitter” HYPERLINK "https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/03/ive-left-twitter-unusable-anyone-but-trolls-robots-dictators-lindy-west" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/03/ive-left-twitter-unusable-anyone-but-trolls-robots-dictators-lindy-west
Class debate:
Online dating: Helpful or Harmful!
The Internet Has Ruined Our Lives vs The Internet is The Best!
June12
12. Fat Feminism and Beauty for Sale
Caleb Luna “On being Fat, Brown, Femme, Ugly and Unlovable” HYPERLINK "https://www.bgdblog.org/2014/07/fat-brown-femme-ugly-unloveable/" https://www.bgdblog.org/2014/07/fat-brown-femme-ugly-unloveable/
Lindsay King-Miller, “Pretty Unnecessary” HYPERLINK "https://bitchmedia.org/article/pretty-unnecessary-beauty-body-positivity?utm_content=buffer813be&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer" https://bitchmedia.org/article/pretty-unnecessary-beauty-body-positivity?utm_content=buffer813be&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Lindy West, “My wedding was perfect and I was fat as hell the whole time” HYPERLINK "https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/21/my-wedding-perfect-fat-woman" https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/21/my-wedding-perfect-fat-woman