SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION
CMNS 487-4

 

Gail Faurschou	Fall 2001
Telephone 291-3687	Burnaby Day

SPECIAL TOPICS
ADVANCED CULTURAL THEORY

Prerequisites:

Permission of the instructor. Students, hopefully, have taken one previous course with a theory component.

This course will introduce students to the tradition of critical theory emphasizing how relationships between culture, ideology, and political economy have been conceptualized by different writers. In the first part of the course we will analyze key debates on the transition from modernity to postmodernity in transnational capitalism. Rohinton Mistry's novel A Fine Balance will provide one context for this discussion. In the second part of the course, students will be introduced to some of the issues raised by post-colonial theories of representation in order to better understand the role of the Western media in processes of globalization.

Required Readings:

David Harvey. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Social Change. Oxford. Basil Blackwell.1995
Mistry, Rohinton. A Fine Balance. McClelland and Stewart. 1995
Reading Kit will be available after course begins.

Recommended Readings:

Jane Collins and Catherine Lutz. Reading National Geographic. Univ. of Chicago Press,1993.
Specific readings will be announced a few weeks before each class. Students must keep up with the readings as seminar discussion will be based on evaluating the arguments presented in them. Attendance and contribution to class discussion is expected.

ASSIGNMENTS:

1) Seminar Presentations: 15%
2) In Class Midterm: 20% (in class with questions handed out previous week.)
3) Essay (12 pages.) 30%
4) Take Home Final Exam: 35%

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to "Intellectual Honesty" and "Academic Discipline" (see the current Calendar, General Regulations section).