Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
What are the debates about over the politics of “popular” in popular fiction?Why do (British) cultural studies intervene in the study of popular narratives? How does the movement away from the “Althusserian moment” in cultural studies denote a change to the “bottom-up” approach and a shift away from the production-oriented emphasis on the text and toward an interest in audience cultural praxis and the consumption of meaning? Do popular texts unproblematically conform to an overarching super-structure be it ideology or narrative structure? Are they “conservative” (maintaining the status quo by smoothing over disruptions and gaps) or oppositional (capable of accommodating radical reshaping and contradictory readings)? Do popular texts imply a passive and consensual reader or do they contain the possibility of being read against the grain and produce resistant readings to be mobilized by sub-culture groups? Why are popular texts “popular”? Is this pleasure complicit in nature or subversive? How has the detective genre benefitted from various theoretical interventions? How has popular postfeminism affected popular women’s genres since the 1990s? These are some of the issues to be explored in this course as we read various romance and detective stories.
能力項目說明
What are the debates about over the politics of “popular” in popular fiction?Why do (British) cultural studies intervene in the study of popular narratives? How does the movement away from the “Althusserian moment” in cultural studies denote a change to the “bottom-up” approach and a shift away from the production-oriented emphasis on the text and toward an interest in audience cultural praxis and the consumption of meaning? Do popular texts unproblematically conform to an overarching super-structure be it ideology or narrative structure? Are they “conservative” (maintaining the status quo by smoothing over disruptions and gaps) or oppositional (capable of accommodating radical reshaping and contradictory readings)? Do popular texts imply a passive and consensual reader or do they contain the possibility of being read against the grain and produce resistant readings to be mobilized by sub-culture groups? Why are popular texts “popular”? Is this pleasure complicit in nature or subversive? How has the detective genre benefitted from various theoretical interventions? How has popular postfeminism affected popular women’s genres since the 1990s? These are some of the issues to be explored in this course as we read various romance and detective stories.
| 教學週次Course Week | 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week | 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type |
|---|---|---|
1. Orientation.
2. Huyssen on the high/low divide; Adorno and continental Marxism on cultural industry and popular music (jazz horoscope radio)
3. Detective Fiction: Edgar Allan Poe; "Murders on the Rue Morgue," ; Dana on Poe and the flaneur
4.Detective fiction. ; Todorov-formula; Sherlock Holmes, A Scanda
l in Bohemia; "The Purloined Letter"
5. Grossvogel on Agatha Christie; pleasure and guilt ( Pederson-Krag)
6. American Hard-boiled Detective Genre: Raymond Chandler, "Trouble is My Business" (textual discussion)(Jameson); film noir;
7. James Bond and the spy genre; Structuralism; Eco; compare Bond analysis, (Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies using Eco)
8. The Davinci Code as metaphysical detective fiction ( Detecting Texts—Black)
9. Cultural Studies: Althusser and Gramsci; The Birmingham School; post-structuralism meaning-making resistance/agency. Hall (current news TV) (encoding/decoding) Bennett on Blackpool 147 Hebdige on subculture; de Certeau on everyday practice (491)Feminist cultural studies and women’s genres. The pleasure/determinism debate
10. Fairy Tales. "Snow White"; feminism and fairy tales
11. "Rebecca";Second-wave feminist criticism: Fowler on romance; formulaic pattern; “screen effect”
12. "Rebecca" Modleski and Radway
13. Postfeminism. Empowerment and femininity. "Fatal Attraction." "Legally Blonde"
14. Postfeminism and chick lit: "Sex and the City" (text); Girl power and neoliberal consumer culture
15. Postfeminism: Empowerment and female sexuality. Madonna. Fifty Shades of Grey
16. Discussing the Final Paper
Presentations 30%
Final paper 50%
Genenral Performance 20%
Most readings are excerpted in the textbook Reading Popular Narrative: A Source Book (Bob Ashley 1997). Others will be provided. Extensive class discussions will be the norm.
Textbook:
Reading Popular Narrative: A Source Book.
References:
Barker Martin. Reading into Cultural Studies.
Bennett. Popular Fiction: Technology Ideology Production Reading.
--------. With Colin Mercer. Popular Fiction and Social Relations
McCracken Scott. Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction.
Palmer Jerry. Potboilers: Methods Concepts and Case Studies in Popular Fiction.
Storey John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader.
----------Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction
| 書名 Book Title | 作者 Author | 出版年 Publish Year | 出版者 Publisher | ISBN | 館藏來源* | 備註 Note |
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