Sarah Baartman through Schitt's Creek:an Introduction to Gender and Popular Culture

Undergraduate / Graduate

Throughout the twentieth century, scholars from Simone de Beauvoir through Judith Butler have argued that genders are learned, enacted and ascribed identities, worked out through interaction. As such, the production of 'gender' is carried out to some extent in relation to cultural models and artifacts that people use to make sense of, model and reject gendered identities, characteristics and roles. This course takes popular culture, including film, television, literature and social media, as a starting point for understanding the often taken-for granted characteristics deemed gendered in Western culture and elsewhere. Attending to race, class, sexuality, age and other social categorizations throughout, we will draw on representation and cultural theory as well as ethnographic works, mingling a close reading of theorists such as Erving Goffman and bell hooks with detailed attention to the latest reality show or trending hashtag. While we will focus primarily on the most widely disseminated and economically powerful imagery, we will also attend to alternative, resistant and activist media. This is an introductory graduate-level course; graduate students at all levels are invited to join, selected spots are reserved for advanced undergraduates.