Hello and welcome to the ongoing class blog for the Fall 2014 course "Pop Culture America" at Millikin University. In this course, which fits into the larger first-year Critical Writing, Reading, and Research sequence, my students and I are exploring the semiotics of American popular culture. That is, we are examining the many aspects of our entertainment and consumer culture, and asking questions about what these might signify in terms of our larger cultural values and norms.
As part of the class, we are reading a lot of articles discussing the "deeper meanings" behind our popular culture. But we also realize that popular culture is not just the subject matter of academic literature -- rather, it is the stuff of our everyday lives. Thus, in order to enrich and expand our class discussions, I have assigned my students to look to the popular culture that surrounds them for artifacts that they feel reveal something significant about who we are as a society and what we believe. I have asked them to "curate" these artifacts of pop culture: alongside the item itself -- be it song, film, advertisement, social media, etc. -- they are to explain the larger ideas they see at work in the object, and to discuss the implications of the values and norms they feel are being reflected and reinforced, whether for better or worse. This blog continues a similar venture from 2013, found here.
I look forward to what is to come in the ensuing weeks and months. One of the great pleasures of teaching for me has always been how much I can also learn from my students, and I have high hopes that this project will offer me -- and all of us -- a deeper glimpse into how we relate to (and are shaped by) the ever-changing world of American popular culture.
Enjoy!
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