Liberal Studies 360 Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture and Society
Professor Steven Jones, E&T 404, 343-4100 ; sjones@calstatela.edu
MW 10:50-12:30
Salazar Hall C258
Course Description:
Taking “culture” as its primary object, this course introduces students to key concepts, theories,
methods, issues, and problems associated with the study of culture in a diverse society. The
course content draws upon research and scholarship spanning the humanities and social sciences
in order to place emphasis on the value of interdisciplinary social inquiry. The course will focus
on representative themes relevant to culture as a dynamic process and practice of everyday life,
such as language, identity, representation, history, art, media, and notions of space and place.
Specific sites for exploring these themes will range in scope from local to regional to global
contexts, and the course will include analysis of cultural processes, artifacts, and institutions. In
all, the course brings together a diverse range of theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary
perspectives in order to provide students with a basic understanding of scholarly approaches to
culture and society. With an emphasis on the value of interdisciplinary analysis, this course will
give students the opportunity to apply their understanding of theories and methods of cultural
analysis to particular historical and contemporary issues.
In the course, students will engage in a variety of activities and assignments designed to develop
their skills in generating research topics, formulating arguments, collecting and evaluating
primary and secondary research, and analyzing and synthesizing complex ideas from diverse
disciplinary perspectives. Periodic written paper assignments will give students the opportunity
to apply specific concepts, theories, and methods of cultural analysis to particular texts or sites of
cultural production. Small-group activities will enable students to “team teach” material from
specific course themes to their peers, while encouraging student interaction and fostering the
negotiation of diverse perspectives. Regular large-group discussion will reinforce students’
understanding of concepts and thematic content.
Learning Outcomes:
The course is designed to achieve the following learning outcomes. Student who complete this
course successfully will
1.
Be familiar with the major theories of culture and the development of cultural studies as a
critical methodology.
2.
Recognize the multiple ways that culture is manifested, e.g., art, literature, film, folklore,
music, political and economic institutions, philosophy, mythology, religion, etc., and be able to
analyze various examples of culture as reflections of the cultural milieu that spawned them.
3.
Be able to analyze culture from a variety of perspectives, including historical, artistic,
literary, economic, political, linguistic, psychological, anthropological, ethnological,
ethnographic, etc.
4.
Understand how culture expresses and enforces values and ideology, both dominant and
subdominant, promulgating, prescribing and endorsing notions of identify, ethnicity, class,
gender, sexual orientation, race, propriety, morality, ontology, cosmology, etc.
5.
Be able to articulate effectively, both orally and in writing, a clear and coherent
understanding of the component elements of culture and how they function.
2
Students who complete LBS 360 will meet the following Content Specifications for the Multiple
Subject Matter Program Curriculum established by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing:

Students demonstrate their ability to use a variety of research sources, both print and
electronic. Students use their findings and interpretations to construct their own reports and
narratives, and understand the importance of citing research sources, using recognizable and
accepted conventions for doing so (Content Specification in Reading, Language, and Literature
2.5).

Students analyze narrative and expository texts for both literary elements and
structural features. Students learn to identify themes derived from cultural patterns and symbols
found in rituals, mythologies, and traditions. Students learn to identify and analyze evidence of
an author’s or narrator’s perspective. Students learn to identify and evaluate structural devices,
and they examine the connections among organizational structures, the writer’s viewpoint, and
the goals of reading (Content Specification in Reading, Language, and Literature 3.1).

Students analyze both implicit and explicit themes and interpret both literal and
figurative meanings in texts, from a range of cultures and genres, using textual support for
inferences, conclusions, and generalizations they draw from any work. Students learn to evaluate
the structure, purpose, and potential uses of visual text features, and develop ability to recognize
and analyze instances of bias and stereotyping in a text (Content Specification in Reading,
Language, and Literature 3.3).

Students learn to analyze, interpret and evaluate research evidence in history and the
social sciences. They interpret primary and secondary sources, including written documents,
narratives, photographs, art and artifacts. In relation to confirmed research evidence they assess
textbooks and contrast differing points of view on historic and current events. Students learn to
recognize the differing ramifications of historical and current events for people of varying ethnic,
racial, socio-economic, cultural and gender backgrounds (Content Specifications in History and
Social Science).
Course Texts:
Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street.
Donalson, Melvin. Masculinity in the Interracial Buddy Film.
Eliot, T.S. The Wasteland and Other Poems.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, (ISBN 0-465-09719-7)
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. The Grimms’ Fairy Tales. New York: Penguin,
Hamilton, Edith. Greek Mythology
Jones, Steven Swann. The Fairy Tale: The Magic Mirror of Imagination. New York:
Routledge, 2000.
Loewen, J. Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Said, Edward. Orientalism.
Course Requirements:
Class attendance and participation 20%
Weekly in-class writing assignments based on the readings 20%
Midterm 20% (in-class essay)
Term Paper (5 pages, analyzing a text or phenomenon) 20%
Final Examination (in-class essay) 20%
3
Course Outline:
Week 1: Major Theories and Methodologies of Cultural Studies
a) What is culture? How is it formed? How does it function? Discussion of specific cultural
formations, such as high culture, popular or mass culture, folk culture, youth culture,
technoculture/cyberculture, Western culture, American culture, school culture, ethnic culture,
family culture, etc. Examination of various examples of cultural manifestations in a variety of
forms, including the print industry (literature, non-fiction, textbooks, comic books, magazines,
etc.), film, TV, radio, music, folklore, clothing, architecture, language, family, class, religion,
games, rituals, customs, etc.
b) Survey of seminal theories of Cultural Studies, which include contributions from such
disciplines as linguistics, semiotics, discourse analysis, language studies, literary criticism,
economics, political science, psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, ethnography,
ethnology, folkloristics, mythology, history, communication studies, and media studies.
Discussion of major methodologies and approaches, such as Marxism, modernism, postmodernism, structuralism, post-structuralism, feminism, post-colonialism, etc.
Week 2: Language and Literature as Cultural Texts: Methods of Rhetorical Analysis
a) Discussion of major modernist and structuralist theories of language and literature’s role in
constructing and shaping culture. Canon formation. Read: T.S. Eliot, The Wastelan.
Recommended reading: T.S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (on e-reserve).
b) The 20th C. post-modernist/post-structuralist critique of modernist and structuralist
assumptions. Recommended reading: Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the
Discourse of the Human Sciences” (on e-reserve).
Week 3: Mythology and Religion: How to Read Myths and Legends as Cultural Texts
Interpreting and analyzing cultural myths, with a focus on multiple examples from Greek
mythology. The roles of myth and legend as shapers of cultural experience; their production,
representation and manipulation of the relationship of power and knowledge. Language and
cultural meaning-making. Cultural values and artistic practices. Read Hamilton, The Greek
Myths.
Week 4: Fairy Tales and Other Folktales as Regulators of Cultural Norms
Analyzing fairy tales and folktales as reflections and promulgators of culture, with a focus on
tales from the Grimms’ collection. Read Jones, The Fairy Tale and selections from Grimms’
Fairy Tales (“Hansel and Gretel,” “Snow White,” “The Giant with the Three Golden Hairs,”
“Faithful John,” “The Goose-Girl,” “Rose-Bud”).
Week 5: Sociology, Ethnography, Ethnology, and Anthropology: How to Read Folklore
and Ordinary Life as Culture; MIDTERM—IN-CLASS ESSAY
a) Folklore and ordinary life as a reflection of and promulgator of culture. Interpretation of
selected examples. Read Geertz, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”
and “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.”
b) MIDTERM
4
Week 6: Feminism and Gender in Cultural Studies: Social Mechanisms and Processes of
Identity Formation
Cultural representations of gender and sexuality. Discussion of theories of identity formation as
a product of cultural influence. Interrogation of the various ways in which notions of personal
identity function in relation to societal norms and cultural identity. Analysis of how the process
of identification formation contributes to cultural hegemony and can be redeployed in
counterhegemonic discourses. Read Sandra Cisneros, House on Mango Stree. Recommended
reading: Sandra Gilbert, “Life’s Empty Pack: Notes Toward a Literary Daughteronomy” (on ereserve).
Week 7: History, Politics, Economics as Both Shapers of and Inflections of Culture
History, economics, and politics as cultural practices and their representation in books and
textbooks. The Marxist economic critique of culture. Discussion of dominant, residual,
emergent, and subdominant culture. Read selections from J. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Week 8: Communication Studies and the Arts: Film, TV, Radio, Music, Art, Theatre, and
Dance
Media as culture: production, circulation, consumption. Production of new cultural discourses
and cultural representations of identities. Consideration of the effect of technology on cultural
forms of expression. Read Melvin Donalson, Masculinity in the Interracial Buddy Film.
Week 9: Globalization, the Internet, and The Post-Colonial Critique of Western Culture,
Postcolonial, neo-colonial, national, and transnational perspectives. Cultural understandings and
experiences of space and place. Representations of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class,
nationality as part of cultural diversity and globalization. Multiculturalism and the ethics of
geopolitics. Globalization and globalized culture. Discussion of the Internet, technoculture,
hacking, and cyberpunk as forms of culture. Discussion of the concepts of margins/centers,
hybridity, and alterity. Read selections from Edward Said, Orientalism.
Week 10: Review and Overview
Term Paper Due. Review of learning outcomes, survey of readings and course concepts,
discussion of outcomes assessment.
Final Examination: Monday, June 5, 10:45-1:15