This course presents an introductory overview of the fields encompassed by Cultural Studies, and is designed to teach a basic understanding of the methods and scholarship that define the topics within this discipline. Cultural Studies is a multi-faceted and interdisciplinary approach that incorporates approaches and methodologies drawn from a variety of fields in the humanities, social sciences, media and fine arts. Its aim is to bring to bear epistemologically comprehensive ways of looking at multiple human endeavors as these become essential to matters of identity, social interaction, creativity, labor, embodiment, desire and aesthetic response. It perceives ideas and actions as socially determined, and in the last instance culturally defined, and hence open to conceptual analysis and interpretation. The purpose of the course is to bring students current on contemporary approaches and allow them to explore the conceptual potential of Cultural Studies via reading, writing about and discussing its current concerns.

1.Students will gain knowledge of the various perspectives particular to Cultural Studies, concerning broad cultural areas influencing human self-concepts, forms of expression, modes of discourse and reactions to various lived social and cultural experiences. These will be made present through readings, lectures and discussion. They will bring demonstrate evidence of mastering this knowledge via writings, presentations and on exams. 2. Students will gain understanding of the particular terminology applied to the investigation of various sub-disciplines within Cultural Studies, as these are relevant to usage in scholarly and media materials in the English language. They will demonstrate mastery of this material via writings, discussion, presentations and on exams. 3. Students will gain insight into and be able to recognize the ways in which everyday social communication in its various personal and professional forms is indebted to Cultural Studies language, concepts and meanings. They will give evidence of having understood this influence through writings, discussion, presentations and on exams. 4. Students will learn how to apply a Cultural Studies analysis to a particular, aesthetic, cultural or conceptual issue currently under discussion in the discipline. They will give evidence of this knowledge mastery through a research project that involves writing, presenting, and discussion.

Simon During, Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction New York: Routledge, 2005.