SEMESTER IV
Paper XVI : EL.543 : Cultural Studies
(Core Course 13 : 6 Hours/week)
Aim
This Course aims to familiarise students with the theory and practice of Culture Studies,
its intersections with class, gender, ethnicity, nationalism and so on, and to analyze
different forms of cultural production.
Course Objectives
The objectives of this Course are to
• introduce the theory and practice of culture studies,
• familiarize students with some of the most important thinkers and methodologies in the
field.
• help analyse the development of British Cultural Studies with a special focus on the
contributions of the CCCS, Birmingham, and later developments in other parts of the
world.
• assess the multidisciplinarity of the field as they navigate encounters of cultural studies
with class, gender, ethnicity, nationalism and so on
• use some of the tools of critical analysis to analyze different forms of cultural production,
including literature, popular culture, and print and electronic media.
Course Outcomes
The students would have
CO 1: developed a thorough understanding of the origin and evolution of Cultural
Studies, major theorists and their contributions
CO 2: Gained sufficient knowledge about methodology and praxis of cultural studies
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C O 3: Gained competence to analyse and valuate cultural texts and practices critically
Course Description
Module I :What is Cultural Studies
Module Outcome
The students would have
MO: been introduced to the primary concepts of cultural studies
Unit 1
Concepts
Frankfurt School- False Consciousness- Culture industry- Birmingham School- Culture as
Ordinary- popular Culture – mass culture
Adorno, T. & Horkheimer, M., 1944. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”.
In T. Adorno and M. Horkheimer. Dialectics of Enlightenment. Translated by John Cumming.
New York: Herder and Herder, 1972. (paragraphs 1- 9)
Text for methodological application
Any Malayalam series/Advertisement
Module II: Doing Cultural Studies
Module Outcome
The students would have
MO: seen how Cultural Studies has played a significant role in comprehending power structures
and locate points of resistance within culture
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Unit 2
Concepts
Discourse- Agency- Cultural Consumption- Stereotyping- Subjectivity- Representation-
interpellation- circuit of culture- ideology- hegemony
[Link], Stuart ([1973] 1980): 'Encoding/decoding'. In Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
(Ed.): Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-79 London:
Hutchinson, pp.128-38.
Unit 3
[Link], John. “Shopping for Pleasure: Malls, Power and Resistance”. Reading Culture. 4th ed.
Ed. Diana George and John Trimbur. New York: Longman, 2001. 283-286.
Text for methodological application
Shopping Mall
Module III: Popular Culture and Subcultures
Module Outcome
The students would have
MO: understood the concept of the popular in the realm of cultural studies, seen how culture is
not monolithic but consists of sub and countercultures
Unit 4
Concepts
Visual cultures, Counter culture, sub culture, soap operas, comic books, shopping and space,
celebrity cultures
Story, John. “What is Popular Culture?” Cultural theory and popular culture: An introduction,
Routledge New York 2015. (pp 1-16)
102
Text for methodological application
Subhash Ghai. Dir. Khalnayak. 1993
Unit 5
Punathambekar, Aswin. “Between rowdies and rasikas: rethinking fan activity in Indian film
culture” Harrington, C. Lee, et al. Fandom, Second Edition: Identities and Communities in a
Mediated World. 2017 (pp. 285-298)
Text for methodological application
Fan pages/Fan associations/ wikifandoms
Module IV: Culture and Nation
Module Outcome
The students would have
MO: leaned the interactions of nation and culture
MO 2: discussed the relationships between religion and culture
Unit 6
Concepts
Nation and culture- popular culture- national popular- religion and culture- moral anxieties
John, Mary E. and Tejaswini Niranjana. “Mirror Politics: Fire, Hindutva and Indian Culture"
Economic and Political Weekly XXXIV (Mar. 1999). 6-13.
Text for methodological application
Fire by Deepa Mehta
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Question Paper Pattern
Same as for the other Core papers. Questions need not be asked from texts for
methodological applicaition.
Reading List
Appadurai, A. (ed.) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective.
Attali, J. Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press. 1985.
Azmi, Shabana, Nandita Das, Ranjit Chowdhry, Kulbushan Kharbanda, and Deepa Mehta. Fire.
Canada: Trial by Fire Films, 1996.
Bakhtin, M. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1981.
Bhabha, H. K. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge. 1994.
Du Gay, P. Consumption and Identity at Work. London: Sage, 1996.
During, Simon. The Cultural Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Grossberg, Lawrence and Cary Nelson and Paula A Treichler eds. Cultural Studies. London:
Routledge. 1992.
Storey, J. (ed). Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, 2nd edn. London: Prentice Hall.
1998.
Young, R. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race. London: Routledge, 1995.
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