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1. Course Aims:
The aim of this course is to introduce various leading social and cultural theories, including Marxism, structuralism, and semiotics, to help students develop a critical and socially sensitive mind to comprehend social and cultural affairs from different viewpoints. The course is a pre-requisite for other advanced courses about cultural and social research provided by the CIL studio. Upon completion of the class, students should understand the basis of various theories for sociological and cultural inquiry, and to explore the use of these theories to analyze their lived experiences, their social worlds, and the larger cultural, political, and economic contexts they inhabit.
Class activities will be designed to address the following:
- To identify a variety of influential theoretical orientations to the understanding of society;
- To compare different theoretical traditions, their strengths and weaknesses;
- To analyze how the social context helped mold the theory, what the theorist¡¦s contributions are, and what the theory¡¦s strengths and weaknesses are; and
- To apply theory to contemporary research and problems and to analyze the implications of each theory.
2. Weekly Schedule & Assignment
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Week |
Class Activity I |
Class Activity II |
Assignment |
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1 |
1/16 |
Lecture: Marx 1 |
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2 |
1/23 |
Lecture: Marx 2 |
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3 |
1/30 |
Lecture: Marx 3(Note) |
LASSI |
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4 |
2/13 |
Screening: Chronicle of a Summer |
Discussion: "alienation" |
Response paper |
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5 |
2/20 |
Lecture: Gramsci's hegemony & HK democratization process(Note) |
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6 |
2/27 |
Lecture: Ideology |
Student presentation 1: Content analysis |
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7 |
3/5 |
Lecture: Structuralism & semiotics |
Quiz 1: Ideology(Samples1,2,3) |
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8 |
3/12 |
Lecture: Structuralism, Althusser & cinema(Note) |
Student presentation 2: semiotics |
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9 |
3/19 |
Quiz 2: Brecht's Epic Theater(Samples 1,2,3) |
Student presentation 3: Weekend |
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# |
4/2 |
Student presentation 4: Male gaze |
critique of Structuralism & cine-psychoanalysis |
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4/9 |
Lecture: Critique of everyday life |
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4/16 |
Screening: Frederick Wiseman's The Titicut Follies |
Student presentation 5: The Titicut Follies |
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4/23 |
Open source & Copyleft |
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Final Paper (5/7) |
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Assessment Weight Due Date
Student presentation 15%
Quiz 20%
Response paper (300 words) 10% 13-Feb
Final paper (2000 words) 35% 7-May
Participation 20%
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