St. Cloud State University
General Education Goal Area 6
Humanities & Fine Arts
Academic Affairs Use Only:
Response Date:
Effective Date:
1.
Proposal Number:
Prepared by: Beth Berila
Phone: 308-3912
Email: esberila@stcloudstate.edu
2.
Requesting Unit: Women's Studies Program
3.
Department, Course Number, Title: WS 330: Gender and Popular Culture
4.
New Course
5.
Will this course be flagged as a diversity course?
Already Designated as Diversity
6.
Will this course also satisfy another General Education Goal Area?
If “Yes” specify which goal area.
Existing Course
No
Diversity Proposal Accompanying This Form
No
Yes
7.
Course bulletin description, including credits and semesters to be offered:
WS 330. Gender and Popular Culture
Representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality in popular culture. Students will develop critical analytical
skills and an understanding of how marginalized groups are portrayed in the media. 3 Cr. DEMAND
8.
Indicate the clientele for whom this course is designed. Is the course for general education only, or
does it fulfill general education and other program needs for this or another department? Obtain
signatures from any affected departments.
This course fulfills an elective for WS majors and minors and will fulfill a general elective and diversity
for students from a variety of majors.
9.
Indicate any changes that must be made in offerings or resources in your department or other
departments by offering this course.
This course is offered annually in our department and so will not require any new resources to continue
doing so.
10.
For new courses or courses not yet approved for General Education, indicate any other SCSU departments
or units offering instruction that relates to the content of the proposed course.
English, Mass Communication, and Film Studies all offer courses related to the content of this course.
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11.
Courses designated as General Education are included in the assessment plan for the Goal Area(s)
for which they are approved. Courses for which assessment is not included in the annual GE
assessment report for two years will be removed from the General Education Program.
The Requesting Unit understands and recognizes the above conditions.
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12.
Provide a concise explanation of how the following goal is a “significant focus” of the proposed course.
Goal Area 6: Humanities & Fine Arts
Expand appreciation and critical understanding of changing modes of human expression and systems of
thought in the arts and humanities, and develop abilities in the creation and performance of meaning.
Gender and Popular Culture develops critical analysis of media culture. The course examines
representations of women and other marginalized groups in a variety of media sites. Students learn how to
analyze intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality in media. By studying levels of text, audience reception,
and the material production of representation, students also learn how symbolic meaning both reflects and shapes
social power dynamics.
13. In order for a course to be designated as fulfilling Goal Area 6, it must address at least 5 of the 7 student learning
outcomes (SLOs) below. Check the SLOs below that are focused on in the proposed general education course.
1. Demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of works in the arts and humanities.
2. Describe and appreciate works in the arts and humanities as expressions of individual and collective values
within an intellectual, cultural, historical and social context.
3. Interpret and respond critically to works from various cultures in the arts and humanities.
4. Explore intellectually the ideas expressed in works in the arts and humanities.
5. Engage in creative processes or interpretive performance.
6. Articulate an informed personal response to works in the arts and humanities.
7. Analyze the diverse means of communication in the arts and humanities.
14.
Discuss how each Student Learning Outcome checked above is achieved in this course. (Note: Although
descriptions of typical assignments or types of assignments may be part of this discussion, it is not
appropriate to submit copies of actual assignments.)
SLO1: WS 330 studies a variety of media sites so that students understand the diversity in the humanities.
We will study the scope and breadth of popular culture by looking at television, media, the internet, films,music,
video games, news, and so on. Stduents will learn to analyze these pop culture sites as "texts" but will also learn
to situate them in their cultural context. The readings, videos, class papers, and the class units will help students
see media as sites of creativity and of cultural and sociopolitical ideologies. Students will learn to analyze how
popular culture blends elements of high and low culture, thus troubling the false binary between them. For
instance, students will analyze how "high" art such as novels influence pop culture renditons of those text. We
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will also study concepts such as intertextuality, to examine how texts in film influence and "talk to" texts in music
and television. We will, therefore, study some of the different definitions of "culture." Students will learn to see
how pop culture texts influence our everyday lives through language, fashion, and so on. The class will include
papers in which students analyze the texts they study and articulate the "so-what" or significance of their analysis.
SLO2: The course readings, assignments, discussions, and units will looks at individual texts as expressions of
particular authors, but also as reflections of the collective cultural values. Students will learn how racial and
gender formations permeate pop culture, as well as how compulsory heterosexuality shapes the narratives we see.
Students will also, however, learn to read the "coded" resistance that marginalized communities have used so that
they begin understand pop culture as a site of contestation. Students will deconstruct how material production
shapes how and what we see, alongside their textual analysis of the symbolism, themes, and patterns of portayals
throughout the folms, television, or musical texts. These aspects of the course will teach students how to analyze
the context in which a text is produced, alongside the patterns of portrayals of other texts. Students will
demonstrate these skills through their analytical essays and through class presentations in which they interpret and
"decode" the underlying meanings in texts. In order to do so, they will also study how audience reception reflects
the dynamics interplay of collective values in society. Students will research public reception of particular texts
and analyze what those responses add to our understandings of texts and of society. We will examine, for
instance, how individualism infuses advertising, while we might also explore how beliefs about heterosexuality
and "proper" men and women shape popular television shows. Students will write papers and deliver
presentations that outline their analysis of these themes in particular films, music videos, or video games. They
will also be asked to trace these ideaologies across pop culture sites to examine the interplay between sites; so, for
instance, a student might trace the theme of masculinity and violence through video games and action films to
examine what kinds of messages they send. We will also, however, consider the multiple meanings infused in
popular culture. Students will engage in class discussions and debates about what particular pop culture texts
mean and what effects they have on society; students will be challenged to navigate the complex and often
contradictory meanings that texts have, and to compare how and why the meanings of cultural texts change over
time.
SLO3:This course takes an interdisciplinary, cultural studies based approach to pop culture. The course readings,
discussions, and papers are geared toward teaching students how to develop a critical analysis of media texts.
They will learn to develop a critical analysis and support it with examples and media theories, particularly
feminist cultural studies. Students will leanr to delineate and interpret specifically patterns of portrayals of
women and marginalized groups. We will study how culture is produced through our participation in it as well as
how different cultures and subcultures use popular culture sites (such as hip hop) to express their identities.
Drawing on Humanities understanding of texts and culture, we will explore how media texts both reflect and
shape culture. Culture, then, is understood as a site of expression and contestation which reflects the complex
sociopolitical dynamics of society, and, in turn, perpetuates and transforms those dynamics. Students will
compare different examples, such as different hip hop songs or different films, in order to examine how the same
medium can be a site of oppression and a site of resistance for marginalized groups.
SLO4:Students will study media sites as sites of creative expression, for both the author and the viewers, as well
as reflections of the society in which the texts are produced. We will look at the "intention" behind a song or a
filmmaker's vision of a film, but then also analyze the song or film as a freestanding text that takes on meaning of
its own that is shaped by its particular cultural context. Students will develop analyses, through both class
discussion and class papers, of how the "text +cultural production+audience reception=cultural meaning(s) of
texts." Students will be asked to develop analyses that interpret the different meanings that texts hold and analyze
what those contested messages tell us about broader ideologies and power relations of society.
SLO6: The discussions and papers will enable students to express their own responses to particular texts (such as
songs, films, television shows, magazines, or video games) and to place their own interests in dialogue with the
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theories we study. We will look at cultural studies understandings of pop culture as well as feminist
interpretations of it. Students will develop analysis of particular media sites of their choice to demonstrate that
they understand how to analyze them. Students will be asked to research the material production of those popular
culture sites as well as the audience reception of them, and to integrate those aspects alongside a textual analysis
of the pop culture site to develop a complex analysis of its meaning(s) at any given historical moment.
SLO7: The readings and examples we use will reflect a variety of media sites, including film, television, music,
social media, video games, facebook, twitter, cell phones, material culture, and so on. Students will contribute
their own favorite examples of popular culture to class discussions and projects so that they learn to develop a
critical lens that they can apply to their everyday lives outside of the classroom. Students will learn theories of
spectatorship, consumer culture, film studies, cultural studies, critical race studies, queer studies, and feminism as
they learn to apply those theories to develop a "reading" of particular texts and the culture they represent.
15.
List or attach the Course Outline (adequately described and including percentage of time to be allocated
to each topic). Curriculum Committees may request additional information. Topics larger than 20% need
to be broken down further. Indicate in your course outline where the Student Learning Outcomes
checked above are being met.
See attached.
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St. Cloud State University
General Education Transmittal Form
Academic Affairs Use Only:
Response Date:
Effective Date:
Proposal Number
Department: Women's Studies Program
Course or Course(s): WS 330: Gender and Popular Culture
Department or Unit Chair Signature
Date
Department forward to Academic Affairs for publication and electronically to Chair of General Education Committee, Chair
of College Curriculum Committee, College Dean
Recommendation of General Education Committee:
Approve
Remarks:
Disapprove
Chairperson
Committee
Signature
Date
Recommendation of University Curriculum Committee:
Approve
Remarks:
Disapprove
Chairperson
Committee
Signature
Date
Recommendation of Faculty Association:
Approve
Remarks:
Disapprove
FA Senate
Signature
Date
Action of Academic Vice President:
Approve
Disapprove
Signature
Entered in Curriculum Data File
12/11/2009
Remarks:
Date