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