everything.study
CMS.871

Media in Cultural Context

3-0-9 units · Graduate

Seminar uses case studies to examine specific media or media configurations and the larger social, cultural, economic, political, or technological contexts within which they operate. Organized around recurring themes in media history, as well as specific genres, movements, media, or historical moments. Previously taught topics include Gendered Genres: Horror and Maternal Melodramas; Comics, Cartoons, and Graphic Storytelling; and Exploring Children's Culture. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Approved for credit in Women's and Gender Studies when content meets the requirements for subjects in that program. Limited to 12.

Fall 2015

Topics

  • Introduction and preliminaries. What are media? What is a book?
  • In class: Introduction to book handling (half-class in Special Collecions )
  • In class: Cuneiform tablet
  • In class: Gutenberg Bible leaves, Nuremberg Chronicle, Prof. Frampton’s linotype
  • In class: Eliot Bible and other Bibles
  • In class: Letters from the MIT Archives
  • In class: Letterlocking workshop with Jana Dambrogio
  • In class: Diderot’s Encyclopedia illustrations of printing
  • Calvino
  • In class: Special Collections presentations of initial findings
  • In class: Digital literature and legacy computing workshop
  • In class: Workshopping day
  • Cloud Atlas cont.

Readings

Fall 2007 · Media in Cultural Context: Popular Readerships

What is the history of popular reading in the Western world? How does widespread access to print relate to distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, between good taste and bad judgment, and between men and women readers? This course will introduce students to the broad history of popular reading and to controversies about taste and gender that have characterized its development. Our grounding in historical material will help make sense of our main focus: recent developments in the theory and practice of reading, including fan-fiction, Oprah's book club, comics, hypertext, mass-market romance fiction, mega-chain bookstores, and reader response theory.

Readings

  • SES #: 1 · TOPICS: Introductions: You, Me, Oprah · READINGS: (no readings)
    Reading assignment
  • Max, D. T. “The Oprah Effect.” The New York Times , December 26, 1999.
    Listed reading
  • Young, John. “Toni Morrison, Oprah Winfrey, and Postmodern Popular Audiences.” African American Review 35, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 181-204.
    Listed reading
  • Illouz, Eva. “Pain and Circuses.” Chapter 4 in Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery . New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780231118125.
    Listed reading
  • Barnard, Rita. “Oprah’s Paton, or South Africa and the Globalization of Suffering.” Safundi 7, no. 3 (July 2006): 1-21.
    Listed reading
  • McHenry, Elizabeth. Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 298-315, 384-386. ISBN: 9780822329954.
    Listed reading
  • Rejecting the Oprah Sticker : This is a brief piece about the tiff between Oprah and Jonathan Franzen, who is arguably one of those white male modernist writers that John Young talks about in his article. Their dispute developed after Franzen was less than enthusiastic about The Corrections being chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. It still won a National Book Award. [Miller, Laura. “Book Lovers’ Quarrel.” Salon.com, October 26, 2001. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Poulet, Georges. “Phenomenology of Reading.” New Literary History 1 (1969): 53-68.
    Listed reading
  • Iser, Wolfgang. “Interaction Between Text and Reader.” In Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993 [1989], pp. 31-41. ISBN: 9780801845932.
    Listed reading
  • Fish, Stanley. “Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics.” New Literary History 2, no. 1, A Symposium on Literary History (Autumn 1970): 123-162.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Interpreting the Variorum.” Critical Inquiry 3, no. 1 (Autumn 1976): 191-196.
    Listed reading
  • de Certeau, Michel. “Reading as Poaching.” In The Practice of Everyday Life . Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002 [1984], pp. 165-176. ISBN: 9780520236998.
    Listed reading
  • Chartier, Roger. “Labourers and Voyagers: From the Text to the Reader.” In The Book History Reader . Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 47-58. ISBN: 9780415226585.
    Listed reading
  • Darnton, Robert. “First Steps Towards a History of Reading.” In The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History . New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1990, pp. 154-187, 364-369. ISBN: 9780393027532.
    Listed reading
  • Zboray, Robert. “Gender and Boundlessness in Reading Patterns.” In A Fictive People: Antebellum Economic Development and the American Reading Public . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 163-179, 251-258. ISBN: 9780195075823.
    Listed reading
  • Davis, Natalie Zemon. “Printing and the People.” In Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays . Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975, pp. 189-226, 326-336. ISBN: 9780804709729.
    Listed reading
  • Henkin, David M. “Print in Public.” In City Reading: Written Words and Public Spaces in Antebellum . New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1998, pp. 101-135, 197-203. ISBN: 9780231107457.
    Listed reading
  • Denning, Michael. “Fiction Factories: The Production of Dime Novels.” In Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America . Revised edition. London, UK: Verso, 1998, pp. 17-26, 214-216. ISBN: 9781859842508.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “The Uses of Literacy: Class, Culture and Dime Novel Controversies.” In Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America . Revised edition. London, UK: Verso, 1998, pp. 47-61, 221-222. ISBN: 9781859842508.
    Listed reading
  • Altick, Richard. “The Social Background.” In The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public 1800-1900 . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1957, pp. 81-98.
    Listed reading
  • Rose, Jonathan. “Rereading the English Common Reader.” In The Book History Reader . Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 324-339. ISBN: 9780415226585.
    Listed reading
  • Radway, Janice. “A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste and Middle-Class Drive.” In The Book History Reader . Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 359-371. ISBN: 9780415226585.
    Listed reading
  • Tompkins, Jane. “Masterpiece Theatre: The Politics of Hawthorne’s Literary Reputation.” In The Book History Reader . Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, pp. 250-258. ISBN: 9780415226585.
    Listed reading
  • Cornelius, Janet Duitsman. “Slaves, Religion and Reading.” In When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South . Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1992, pp. 11-36, 154-159. ISBN: 9780872498716.
    Listed reading
  • Douglass, Frederick. Chapter VI in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass . Edited by William L. Andrews and William S. McFeely. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1997, pp. 28-35. ISBN: 9780393969665. (The e-text is available via of Project Gutenberg.) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Henson, Josiah. In The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada (1849) . Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007. ISBN: 9780548593233.
    Listed reading
  • Radway, Janice. “The Readers and their Romances.” In Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature . 2nd ed. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991, pp. 46-85. ISBN: 9780807843499.
    Listed reading
  • Parameswaran, Radhika. “Western Romance Fiction as English-Language Media in Postcolonial India.” Journal of Communication 49, no. 3 (Summer 1999): 84-105.
    Listed reading
  • 16 · Romance readers II · Radway, Janice. “Introduction: Writing Reading the Romance.” In Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature . 2nd ed. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991, pp. 46-85. ISBN: 9780807843499.
    Listed reading
  • Brown, Jeffrey. “Comic Book Fandom.” Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans . Jackson, MI: University of Mississippi Press, 2001, pp. 58-92, 205. ISBN: 9781578062829. This is a wonderful piece. One of my favorite studies of fan behavior. The material about comics fans at their annual convention is priceless.
    Listed reading
  • The righteous anger of Eric Reynolds by Heidi MacDonald in The Beat: The News Blog of Comics Culture (September 1, 2007) ↗
    Listed reading
  • On being a grown-up in the comic-book industry by Christopher Butcher in Comics212 (September 3, 2007) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Why Comic Shops Still Matter, Or At Least Why They Should by Tom Spurgeon in The Comics Report (September 10, 2007) ↗
    Listed reading
  • The State of Comic Shops by Jennider De Guzman in SLG: Better Comics Through Superior Firepower by SLG Publishing News (September 12, 2007) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Jenkins, Henry. “Scribbling in the Margins: Fan Readers / Fan Writers.” Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture . New York, NY: Routledge, 1992, pp. 152-184. ISBN: 9780415905725.
    Listed reading
  • Penley, Constance. “Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture.” Cultural Studies . Edited by Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler. New York, NY: Routledge, 1991, pp. 479-494. ISBN: 9780415903455.
    Listed reading
  • Miller, Laura. “The Best-Seller List as Marketing Tool and Historical Fiction.” Book History 3 (2000): 286-304.
    Listed reading
  • Twitchell, James B. “Paperbacked Culture.” Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America . New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1992, pp. 67-81, 98-130. ISBN: 9780231078306.
    Listed reading
  • Squaires, Claire. Marketing Literature: The Making of Contemporary Writing in Britain . London, UK: Palgrave, 2007, chapter 1. ISBN: 9781403997739. This reading covers a lot of ground, charting changes that happened throughout the 1990s in the book trades. Her focus is London, but what she says certain applies just as well to a US context. It will help you think about how certain books become bestsellers (especially certain literary books).
    Listed reading
  • Brouillette, Sarah. “The Paperback.” In The Oxford Companion to the Book . Forthcoming.
    Listed reading
  • Out of class: Go visit a mega-chain bookstore, and watch You’ve Got Mail . ↗
    Listed reading
  • Miller, Laura J. “Serving the Entertained Consumer: The Multifunction Bookstore.” In Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 104-139, 258-263. ISBN: 9780226525907.
    Listed reading
  • Gardiner, Juliet. “Reformulating the Reader: Internet Bookselling and its Impact on the Construction of Reading Practices.” Changing English 9, no. 2 (October 2002): 161-168.
    Listed reading
  • Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 104-139, 258-263. ISBN: 9780226525907.
    Listed reading
  • Fuller, Danielle, and DeNel Rehberg Sedo. “A Reading Spectacle for the Nation: The CBC and ‘Canada Reads’.” Journal of Canadian Studies 40, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 5-36.
    Listed reading
  • 23 · FADS: Harry Potter mania
    Listed reading
  • Nel, Philip. “Is There a Text in this Advertising Campaign?: Literature, Marketing, and Harry Potter.” The Lion and the Unicorn 29, no. 2 (2005): 236-267.
    Listed reading
  • Waetjen, Jarrod, and Timothy Gibson. “Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish: Activating Corporate Readings in the Journey from Text to Commercial Intertext.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4, no. 1 (March 2007): 3-26.
    Listed reading
  • Bérubé, Michael. “Harry Potter and the Power of Narrative.” The Common Review 6, no. 1 (Summer 2007): 15-20.
    Listed reading
Spring 2007

This course explores the international trade in television text, considering the ways in which 'foreign' programs find places within 'domestic' schedules. Looking at the life television texts maintain outside of their home market, this course examines questions of globalization and national cultures of production and reception. Students will be introduced to a range of positions about the nature of international textual trade, including economic arguments about the structuring of international markets and ethnographic studies about the role imported content plays in the formation of hybrid national identities. Students will be encouraged to consider the role American content is made to play in non-American markets.

Readings

  • Havens, Timothy. Global Television Marketplace . London, UK: British Film Institute, 2006. ISBN: 9781844571048.
    Required
  • Sinclair, John, Elizabeth Jacka, and Stuart Cunningham, eds. New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780198711223.
    Required
  • Tomlinson, John. Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780801842504.
    Required
  • Moran, Albert. Copycat Television: Globalisation, Program Formats, and Cultural Identity. Luton, Bedfordshire, UK: University of Luton Press, 1998. ISBN: 9781860205378.
    Recommended
  • Olson, Scott Robert. Hollywood Planet: Global Media and the Competitive Advantage of Narrative Transparency . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999. ISBN: 9780805832303.
    Recommended
  • Allen, Robert Clyde, and Annette Hill, eds. The Television Studies Reader . New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. ISBN: 9780415283243.
    Recommended
  • WEEK #: 1 · TOPICS: Course introduction · READINGS: (no readings)
    Reading assignment
  • Havens, Timothy. “Introduction: Studying Global Television Merchants,” “The History of Global Television Sales,” and “Selling Television Internationally.” In Global Television Marketplace . London, UK: British Film Institute, 2006, pp. 1-65. ISBN: 9781844571048.
    Listed reading
  • Tomlinson, John. “The Discourse of Cultural Imperialism.” In Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction . Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, pp. 1-33. ISBN: 9780801842504.
    Listed reading
  • Sinclair, John, Elizabeth Jacka, and Stuart Cunningham. “Peripheral Vision.” In New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . USA: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 1-32. ISBN: 9780198711223.
    Listed reading
  • Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” In Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity: The Theory, Culture and Society Special Issue . Edited by M. Featherstone. London, UK: Sage, 1990, pp. 295-310. ISBN: 9780803983229.
    Listed reading
  • Hoskins, Colin, and Rolf Mirus. “Reasons for the U.S. Dominance of the International Trade in Television Programmes.” Media, Culture and Society 10, no. 10 (1988): 499- 504.
    Listed reading
  • Hoskins, Colin, Rolf Mirus, and William Rozeboom. “U.S. Television Programs in the International Market: Unfair Pricing?” Journal of Communication 39, no. 2 (1989): 55-75.
    Listed reading
  • Rozeboom, William, Colin Hoskins, Stuart McFadyen, and Adam Finn. “Export Pricing of Television Programmes.” In Global Television and Film: An Introduction to the Economics of the Business . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 68-50. ISBN: 9780198711476.
    Listed reading
  • Havens, Timothy. “Buying International Programming.” In Global Television Marketplace . London, UK: British Film Institute, 2006, pp. 95-118. ISBN: 9781844571048.
    Listed reading
  • Tomlinson, John. “Media Imperialism,” and “Cultural Imperialism and the Discourse of Nationality.” In Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction . London, UK: British Film Institute, 2006, pp. 34-101. ISBN: 9780801842504.
    Listed reading
  • Liebes, Tamar, and Elihu Katz. “Mutual Aid in the Decoding of Dallas.” In The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of Dallas . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 82-99. ISBN: 9780195054873.
    Listed reading
  • Miller, Daniel. “The Consumption of Soap Opera: The Young and the Restless and Mass Consumption in Trinidad.” In To Be Continued…Soap Operas Around the World . Edited by Robert Clyde Allen. New York, NY: Routledge, 1995, pp. 213-33. ISBN: 9780415110075.
    Listed reading
  • Cunningham, Stuart, and Elizabeth Jacka. “Neighbourly Relations? Cross-Cultural Reception Analysis and Australian Soaps in Britain.” Cultural Studies 8, no. 3 (1994): 509-526.
    Listed reading
  • Olson, Scott Robert. “Hollywood Planet: Global Media and the Competitive Advantage of Narrative Transparency.” In The Television Studies Reader . pp. 111-129.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “The Transparent Text.” In Hollywood Planet: Global Media and the Competitive Advantage of Narrative Transparency . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999, pp. 87-113. ISBN: 9780805832303.
    Listed reading
  • Green, Joshua. “Narrative Transparency and the Form of Teen Drama.” In Acts of Translation: Young People, American Teen Dramas, and Australian Television 1992-2004 . Doctoral Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2005, pp. 88-147. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Olson, Scott Robert. “The Transparent and the Opaque.” In Hollywood Planet: Global Media and the Competitive Advantage of Narrative Transparency . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999, pp. 134-161. ISBN: 9780805832303.
    Recommended
  • Havens, Timothy. “Scheduling International Television Imports.” In Global Television Marketplace . London, UK: British Film Institute, 2006, pp. 119-156. ISBN: 9781844571048.
    Recommended
  • Ellis, John. “Scheduling: The Last Creative Act in Television?” Media, Culture and Society 22, no. 1 (2000): 25-38.
    Recommended
  • Green, Joshua. “Network Ten and the Creation of a Youth Broadcaster.” In Acts of Translation: Young People, American Teen Dramas, and Australian Television 1992-2004 . Doctoral Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2005, pp. 148-212. ↗
    Recommended
  • Waisbord, S. “McTV: Understanding the Global Popularity of Television Formats.” Television and New Media 5, no. 4 (2004): 359-383; available from MIT Library.
    Recommended
  • Moran, A. “Program Adaptations and Cultural Identity.” In Copycat Television: Globalisation, Program Formats, and Cultural Identity. Luton, Bedfordshire, UK: University of Luton Press, 1998, pp. 75-144.
    Recommended
  • Ferrari, Chiara. “ The Nanny in Italy: Language, Nationalism and Cultural Identity .” Global Media Journal 3, no. 4 (Spring 2004). ↗
    Recommended
  • Kilborn, Richard. “Speak My Language.” Media, Culture and Society 15, no. 4 (1993): 641-660.
    Recommended
  • Find scholarly work discussing the American adaptation of The Office . ↗
    Listed reading
  • Wark, McKenzie. “Vector.” In Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 3-28. ISBN: 9780253208941.
    Listed reading
  • Gillespie, Marie. “Local Uses of Media: Negotiating Culture and Identity.” In Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change . New York, NY: Routledge, 1995, pp. 76-108. ISBN: 9780415096751.
    Listed reading
  • Sparks, Colin. “The Global, the Local and the Public Sphere.” In The Television Studies Reader . pp. 139-150.
    Listed reading
  • Sinclair, John, and Stuart Cunningham. “Diasporas and the Media.” In Floating Lives: The Media and Asian Diasporas . Edited by John Sinclair and Stuart Cunningham. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001, pp. 1-34. ISBN: 9780742511361.
    Listed reading
  • Cunningham, Stuart, and Tina Nguyen. “Popular Media of the Vietnamese Diaspora.” In Floating Lives: The Media and Asian Diasporas . Edited by John Sinclair and Stuart Cunningham. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001, pp. 91-135. ISBN: 9780742511361.
    Listed reading
  • Sinclair, John. “Mexico, Brazil and the Latin World.” In New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . pp. 33-68.
    Listed reading
  • Ray, Manas, and Elizabeth Jacka. “Part II: Indian Television: An Emerging Regional Force.” In New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . pp. 83-100.
    Listed reading
  • Chan, Joseph Man. “Television in Greater China: Structure, Exports, and Market Formation.” In New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . pp. 126-161.
    Listed reading
  • Hong, Junhao. “Television Program Importation Since the Reform of the 1980s.” In The Internationalization of Television in China: The Evolution of Ideology, Society, and Media Since the Reform . Wesport, CT: Praeger, 1998, pp. 57-76. ISBN: 9780275959982.
    Listed reading
  • Amin, H. “Egypt and the Arab World in the Satellite Age” In Sinclair, J, E. Jacka, and S. Cunningham. New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . USA: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 101-125. ISBN: 9780198711223.
    Listed reading
  • O’Regan, Tom. “The International Circulation of British Television.” In British Television: A Reader . Edited by C. Brundson and J. Caughie. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 303-322. ISBN: 9780198742654.
    Listed reading
  • Attallah, Paul. “Canadian Television Exports: Into the Mainstream.” In New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . pp. 161-191.
    Listed reading
  • Cunninham, Stuart, and Elizabeth Jacka. “Australian Television in World Markets.” In New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . pp. 192-228.
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Subject meets with 21L.715J, CMS.415[J] Prereq: Permission of instructor G (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units Can be repeated for credit.

Sources