Curriculum | Course Descriptions
Please Note: all of the following courses should become available over the course of a two-year cycle. 808 is offered every semester. Enrollments allowing, 802 and 806 will be offered every year.
Core Requirements:
Four courses (12 credits) are to be completed during the first three semesters of enrollment in the program, as follows:
- 802: Histories of Cultural Studies (3:3:0).
- Historical survey of principal works and theories in the development of Cultural Studies. (Notes: Entering doctoral students take this course during the Fall of their first year. Students in a related MA program may take this course as the capstone to their MA as they are about to matriculate into the PhD in cultural studies.)
- 804: Histories of Cultural Studies, Part II (3:3:0).
- Continues the historical survey of cultural studies up to the present and assesses possibilities for future development. (Note: First year students take this course during the Spring semester.)
- 806: Research Seminar in Cultural Studies (3:3:0).
- Introduces research methods in cultural studies. (Notes: Specific topics vary. Students take this course during the Fall of their second year.)
- 808: Student/Faculty Colloquium in Cultural Studies (1:1:0).
- Forum for presentation of original and current research in cultural studies. (Notes: Students register for 1 credit per semester over a three-semester period.)
- 810: Culture and Political Economy (3:3:0).
- Surveys social science and humanities classics that relate cultural production and consumption to underlying political economic conditions. Includes Marx, Lukacs, Frankfurt School, semiotic neo-Marxism, productivist theories of power indebted to Foucault, Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Harvey, Jameson, Mauss, Mill, Polanyi, Sahlins, A. Smith, and Weber.
- 814: Gender and Sexuality (3:3:0).
- Investigates notions of gender functions in maintaining and analyzing issues of social and cultural power. Examines conflicting notions of sexuality and their role in cultural signification. Seeks to explicate relationship of sexuality, gender.
- 820: After Colonialism (3:3:0).
- Surveys racial, ethnic, caste, and national identities in colonial contexts; scientific racism in periphery and core sites; subsequent history of race, ethnic, national identities and conflicts; classical and contemporary texts by authors such as DuBois, Fanon, Gilroy, and Spivak; and particular place of issues of national, racial, and ethnic identities in contemporary cultural studies.
- 812: Visual Culture (3:3:0).
- Prerequisites: Admission to program or permission of instructor. This course examines theories of visual culture, covering such topics as film, video, visual arts, music, display, ritual, performance, performativity, theories of the aesthetic, as well as their production, consumption, and reception. Key readings from theorists such as Adorno, Artaud, Benjamin, Brecht, Bryson, Doane, Fiske, Heath, Marcuse, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre.
- 816: Science/Technology (3:3:0).
- Prerequisites: Admission to program or permission of instructor. This course considers theories of and major debates about the culture of science, the social construction of nature, and the effects of technology on modern cultural forms-key concepts for many areas of cultural studies. Readings from such theorists as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Feyerabend, Bahro, Haraway, Latour.
- 818: Social Institutions (3:3:0).
- Prerequisites: Admission to program or permission of instructor. This course considers theories of institutional practice and social structures, from Max Weber to Michel Foucault. It covers such key topics for cultural studies as prisons, bureaucracies, museums, schools, political parties, and social movements.
- 860: Special Topics in Cultural Studies (1-3:1-3:0).
- Prerequisites: Admission to program or permission of instructor. Specialized interdisciplinary topics in cultural theory and analysis. Content varies. May be repeated.
- 870: Directed Readings (3:0:0).
- Intensive reading course aimed at developing comprehensive coverage for specific fields as agreed upon in consultation with student's advisors. May be repeated.
- 880: Independent Study (1-3:0:0).
- Reading and research on a specific topic, resulting in a written project. May be repeated.
- 998: Doctoral Dissertation Proposal (1-6:0:0).
- Work on a research proposal that forms the basis for the doctoral dissertation. Students enrolling in 998 must have completed all Cultural Studies course work, fulfilled the foreign language requirement, and passed the comprehensive examination. Course may be repeated once for credit.
- 999: Doctoral Dissertation (1-12:0:0).
- Prerequisites: Completion of CULT 998 and public presentation of the dissertation proposal. Doctoral dissertation research and writing under the direction of the student's dissertation committee.
Breadth Requirements:
In addition, students will fulfill their Theory and Topics requirements during their first two years in the program.
Theory:
Students will complete a minimum of one course (3 credits) in Theory chosen from the following:
Topics:
Students will complete a minimum of one course (3 credits) in a Topic chosen from:
Fields of Specialization:
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Dissertation Research:
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