New Seminar Course Description! MALAS 601 Fall 2020 An Introduction to Cultural Studies with Professor Pam Fox-Kuhlken

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Fall 2020: MALAS 601 
An Introduction to Cultural Studies/Interdisciplinary Studies 
The Life-or-Death Value of Cultural Studies During Crisis 
Dr. Pam Fox-Kuhlken
Thursdays, 4-6:40

Culture is alive—growing and changing. It is past-, present-, and future-oriented. Emancipatory, cultural theory fuses hierarchies of high and low cultures and seeks new knowledge as we ford the new rivers Heraclitus’ spoke of in ancient days. Cultural Studies draws upon the Humanities (arts, cultural studies, history, languages, literature, philosophy, religion) along with Natural and Social Sciences, so your particular area of interest will be front and center at some point! 

Stuart Hall and Cultural Studies

Cultural Studies--rooted in Karl Marx’s revolutionary dialectical materialism envisioning a communist utopia and Michel Foucault’s new historicism that critiques how power happens through discourses and strips hegemonies’ Oz-like illusions, and feminists like Susan Sontag, Simone de Beauvoir, and Julia Kristeva with remedies to phallocentricism—offers new ways of thinking, knowing, and communicating, equipping us to face CRISIS head-on.

We are an echo-chamber if we lose relevance. In this age of STEM headlines and investments, Humanities are slighted, facing drastic cuts in universities and now with a global pandemic, the Liberal Studies’ use value is eclipsed as masses turn to immunologists for daily guidance.

Ultimately, what matters, life-or-death, about cultural studies? This is a collaborative class and everyone will contribute to our culture: writing, discussing, co-hosting class, recommending texts for our syllabus.

Pierre Bourdieu

We’ll begin with an OVERVIEW of cultural/interdisciplinary criticism; then explore PANDEMIC with Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Lacan; MUSIC of crisis with composer John Cage, pianist Ludovico Einaudi’s “Elegy for the Arctic,” ethnomusicologists in The Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies (JIMS), and interrogate silence (Thomas Merton); SAVING THE WORLD with billionaires (Elon Musk and Bill Gates) and brilliance (TED talks, Nobel Laureates, MacArthur geniuses); SOCIAL MEDIA (Sartre’s existential project of being; Martin Heidegger’s shared world; Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital; Mark Zuckerberg); then we’ll work our cultural/interdisciplinary magic on topics you choose (i.e. you nominate, we vote upon, and schedule by the second or third week)! And as your champion and advocate, I’ll make all the readings available for you.

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Dr. Pam is in her 13th lucky year at SDSU, teaching English & Comp Lit, Religious Studies, and Classics & Humanities. She's wanted to teach since kindergarten so this is Plan A, and she thrives with a syllabus in hand, but prefers to make classes collaborative so we'll create MALAS 601 together. Writing poetry, watching Criterion films, researching literary topics, and reading theory and philosophy is keeping her busy in quarantine, punctuated with yoga. And she's celebrating her daughter's scholarship to MIT starting this Fall. Pam has numerous publications and three advanced degrees (PhD in Comparative Literature, MA in Poetics, MA in Theology) and is ready for our Thursday afternoon symposium this Fall, joining fellow Epicureans in the garden of Plato's academy!

MALAS-601

01

22284

INTRO TO CULTURAL STUDIES
1600-1840
TH
HH-210
P. KUHLKEN