THEA 241
Performing Masculinity in Global Popular Culture Fall 2013
Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed WGSS 240 / LATS 241 / AMST 241
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

This course examines popular cultural contexts, asking what it means to be a man in contemporary societies. We focus on the manufacture and marketing of masculinity in advertising, fashion, TV/film, theater, popular music, and the shifting contours of masculinity in everyday life, asking: how does political economy change the ideal shape, appearance, and performance of men? How have products – ranging from beer to deodorant to cigarettes — had their use value articulated in gendered ways? Why must masculinity be the purview of “males” at all; how can we change discourses to better include performances of female masculinities, butch-identified women, and trans* men? We will pay particular attention to racialized, queer, and subaltern masculinities. Some of our case studies include: the short half-life of the boy band in the US and in Asia (e.g., J/K-Pop), hip hop masculinities at home and abroad, changing standards of masculinity in pornography (e.g., thug porn), a backwards glance at 18th c. fads for eunuch opera singers, and the curious blend of chastity and homoeroticism that constitutes masculinity in the contemporary vampire genre. Through these and other examples, we learn to recognize masculinity as a performance shaped by the political economy of a given culture.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 20
Expected: 20
Class#: 1720
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: masculinity scrapbook and journal, mid-term essay, final paper proposal, 8- to 10-page final paper, short field trip reaction essay
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: WGSS majors; American Studies majors; Theatre majors; Latina/o Studies majors; juniors/seniors; students with strong research interest in this subject matter (e.g., writing a related thesis)
Distributions: Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under AMST, LATS or WGSS; meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under THEA
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
WGSS 240 Division II THEA 241 Division I LATS 241 Division II AMST 241 Division II
Attributes: LATS Comparative Race + Ethnic Studies Electives

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