Topics and related readings for the Essay: 2014-2015
a. Please choose one of the following topics for writing the Essay Framework in
Term I and the Final Essay in Term II.
b. You will be constructing the essay framework using the course concepts
(explained in the lectures) and the arguments in the articles that are listed for each
of the topics.
c. You will be applying this framework in the Final Essay to analyze various
popular and critical media resources (for further explanation see, Final Essay
details and evaluation criteria for the final essay and presentation posted on course
website).
d. Class time will be provided for discussing the essay framework on the topics, how
to use the readings and how to write the essay.
e. Also for the Final Essay, class time will be available for discussing all the details
on the media materials you will need.
Topics on the left side of the table column 1 are for Term I Essay framework; On the
right side of the table column 2 are for Term II Final essay.
Topic 1
Column 1 Term I Essay
Docility and Commodification of the body
Column 2 Term II Final essay
Popular and critical media portrayals of
commercialized versions of the Body:
women or/and men
1. Chaput, Catherine. (2009). Regimes of Truth, Disciplined bodies, Secured
populations: An overview of Michel Foucault, Science Fiction Film and Television, 2
(1): 91-104
2. Menon, M. & Sharland, A. (2011). Narcissism, Exploitative Attitudes, and Academic
Dishonesty: An Exploratory Investigation of Reality Versus Myth, Journal of
Education for Business, 86: 50–55.
3. Crittenden, V.L., Hanna, C.R. & Peterson, R.A. (2009). The Cheating Culture: The
Global Societal Phenomenon, Business Horizons (2009) 52: 337-346
4. Thorpe, H. (2008). Foucault, Technologies of Self, and the Media : Discourses of
Femininity in Snowboarding Culture, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 32: 199
5. McCarthy, D. etal. (2003). Constructing Images and Interpreting Realities: The Case
of the Black Soccer Player on Television, International Review For The Sociology Of
Sport 38/2(2003) 217–238.
6. Benford, R (2007). The College Sports Reform Movement: Reframing the
“Edutainment” Industry, The Sociological Quarterly, 48.
Topic 2
Column 1 Term I Essay
Do the government surveillance of the
Column 2 Term II Final essay
The public and corporate consumers as
public and corporate surveillance of the
consumers make them prisoners as
Foucault argues?
represented in the popular media, .e.g.,
in popular advertising vs. critical media
1. Chaput, Catherine. (2009). Regimes of Truth, Disciplined bodies, Secured
populations: An overview of Michel Foucault, Science Fiction Film and Television, 2
(1): 91-104.
2. Humphreys, A. (2006) The Consumer as Foucauldian “Object of Knowledge,”
Social Science Computer Review, 24 (3): 296-309.
3. Dryburgh, A & Fortin, S. (2010): Weighing in on surveillance: perception
of the impact of surveillance on female ballet dancers’ health, Research in Dance
Education, 11:2, 95-108.
4. Cressida J. Heyes (2007): Cosmetic Surgery And The Televisual Makeover,
Feminist Media Studies, 7 (1): 17-32.
5. Coffey, J (2013). Bodies, body work and gender: Exploring a Deleuzian approach,
Journal of Gender Studies, 22 (1): 3–16.
6. Bossewitch, J & Sinnreich, A (2012). The end of forgetting: Strategic agency beyond
the panopticon, New Media & Society, 15(2), 224-242.
Topic 3
Column 1 Term I Essay
School & education: Does it go beyond
its role of teaching how to be
disciplined to gain an education? Does
it use its power to teach obedience
simply to control students?
Column 2 Term II Final essay
How is the school and education
portrayed in the media? What is the
freedom gained through self-discipline
while seeking true education?
1. Dalton, M (2013). Bad teacher is Bad for Teacher, Journal of Popular Film and
Television, 41 (2), 78-87.
2. Thomson, P. et al (2012). Towards educational change leadership as a discursive
practice - Or should all school leaders read Foucault? Int. J. Leadership In Education,
16 (2)155–172.
3. Anderson, G.L & Grinberg, J. (1998). Educational Administration as a Disciplinary
Practice: Appropriating Foucault’s View of Power, Discourse and Method,
Educational Administration Quarterly, 34 (3): 329-353.
4. Taylor, L.D. & Setters, T. (2011). Watching Aggressive, Attractive, Female
Protagonists Shapes Gender Roles for Women Among Male and Female
Undergraduate Viewers, Sex Roles, 65:35–46.
5. Yakaboski, T. (2011). “Quietly Stripping the Pastels”: The Undergraduate Gender
Gap, The Review of Higher Education, 34: 4, 555–580
6. Vandermeersche, G., et al (2013). “Shall I tell you what is wrong with Hector as a
teacher”: ‘The History Boys’,…, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 41 (2), 8897.
Topic 4
Column 1 Term I Essay
Power/knowledge
Choose one below
Technologies of modification of bodyparts
or
What do Students know on gender/
race? What are their preferences and
academic decisions they make based on
gender and race
or
Visible and Invisible oligarchy of
power: Gender in higher education
Column 2 Term II Final essay
Popular vs. critical media versions of
the Body, definition of beauty, surgical
modifications, Tattooed body, etc.
Popular vs. critical media images on
racialized/ sexualized body and its
expressions
Sex /Power and Gender discourses in
popular vs. critical media
1. Stern, B.B., Russell, C.A., Russell, D.W. (2005). Vulnerable Women on Screen and
at Home: Soap Opera Consumption. Journal of Macromarketing, 25 (2): 222-225.
2. Azzarito (2010). Future Girls, transcendent femininities and new pedagogies: toward
girls' hybrid bodies?, Sport, Education and Society, 15:3, 261-275. Blackman, L.
(2004).
3. Merskin, D (2004). Reviving Lolita? A Media Literacy Examination of Sexual
Portrayals of Girls in Fashion Advertising, American Behavioral Scientist, 48:1, 119129.
4. Meyer, M.D.E., Fallah, A.M. & Wood, M.M. (2011). Gender, Media, and Madness:
Reading a Rhetoric of Women in Crisis Through Foucauldian Theory, The Review of
Communication. 11 (3) : 216-228
5. Sears, C.A & Godderis, R. (2011). Roar Like a Tiger o TV? Constructions of
Women and child birth in Reality TV, Feminist Media Studies, 11 (2): 181-195.
6. Hansen, A.H. (2013). Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in: Present pasts in 20
years of American TV serial fiction from Northern Exposure to Mad Men,
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 27 (1): 141–159.
7. Dubrofsky, R.J (2013). Jewishness, Whiteness, and Blackness on Glee: Singing to the
Tune of Postracism, Communication, Culture & Critique, 6: 82–102.
Topic 5
Column 1 Term I Essay
Role of power and the shaping of
‘Truth’.
Column 2 Term II Final essay
Corporate Media representations of
race, gender, children that influence the
public’s popular notions of them
1. Winter, J (2002). Canada’s Media Monopoly, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
(FAIR), May/June 2002, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1106 (accessed 26 July
2009).
2. Oliviery Case: Corporate Influence at the University of Toronto, Anne McIlroy,
Olivieri affair was rife with errors, report says The Brownbag Research Seminars
2002-2003, ‘Your Silence or Your Job?’ Newsmaker Olivieri speaks at York.
3. Hudson, S. & Elliot, C. (2013). Measuring The Impact Of Product Placement On
Children Using Digital Brand Integration, Journal of Food Products Marketing,
19:176–200.
4. Seale, C. et.al. (2006). Commodification of Body Parts: By Medicine or by Media?
Body & Society. 12 (1): 25–42.
5. Turner, B. (2006). Hospital, Problematizing Global Knowledge: Special Issue,
Theory, Culture & Society, 23 (2-3): 573-579.
6. Friedman, R.J. (2013. “A Moving-Picture of Democracy”: President Obama and
African American Film History Beyond the Mirror Screen, Quarterly Review of Film
and Video, 30: 4–15.