Critical Studies Syllabus Proposals
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Aright to get it started: I think we were all pretty solidly behind Chris's idea that some sort of general thesis practices workshop would be a lot of help. I think it would make sense to hold that as early as possible in the semester. I could personally see it taking up two days, one for writing, one for research, but that's only my opinion.
Because my personal interests (although they are nearly guaranteed to be different tomorrow) have to do with identity construction, and it seemed some others in the group had similar ideas, I would appreciate a lecture that covers the theorists who have written about that subject, and it's development in pre-mechanical, post-mechanical, and digital ages.
I'm also big on guest speakers, and it might be useful and interesting to bring in people with expertise in particular areas. For instance some people mentioned journalism as a probable thesis topic. What if we brought in the online editor of the LA Times to have a discussion with a long-form journalist like David Foster Wallace or something like that? Or what if we bring in a panel of film critics to talk about the role of new media in their work? There are a lot of possibilities, if complications in bringing in outside speakers.
Talking about presentations is more difficult I think, because that is a subject dependent on personal interests. I mean, I could give a presentation on the role of media theory in architecture and city design, which I find intriguing, but who else is going to care that much when we are all working on totally unrelated subjects? Or I really like distributed narratives, but do I even want to spend a lot of time preparing a presentation when it may have nothing to do with my potential project? Probably not. If we want to organize presentations it seems to me we should find some pretty communal interests, or find some way to decide what has potential to be entertaining or educational, which will not be very easy. -Devin Rapson
Jaime Swarthout - I actually don't mind the idea of giving more specific lectures. Granted, a few students will probably feel like it's a waste of time (maybe even myself after a while), however as of right now as I'm about to graduate I feel like there's so much that I've missed in my classes and so much that I have to learn before I graduate. Therefore, I kind of like the idea of all of us chatting about our personal interests, since chances are this is one of our last opportunities to learn about something outside of the lens we've chosen to look through as we write our final projects. (We also might run out of things to say if we try to lecture subjects of Critical Theory that apply to everyone).
Will Tran: It seemed like yesterday's class was about balancing how individual and collaborative we wanted the seminar to be. Like Jaime said, I think agreeing on topics based on our personal interests gives us both of those elements. Regarding the 9 topics by Wednesday, I did not write anything down, but from what I remember, we have:
How to Write a Thesis Workshop
Identity Construction
Gender
Race/Ethnicity
Journalism
Fandom
Media Consolidation and Ownership
Globalization/Media
Media Literacy
Censorship/MPAA
Guest Speakers
Anything else we should add?
Liv Sajjadieh: I believe that film criticism, and media criticism in general were also brought up. Could one of the workshops, or lectures, perhaps following the ones on gender, race/ethnicity, and identity construction, discuss how we use all of these things as a way of critiquing media? Just throwing it out there.
Susana: For a combination of student presentations and guest speakers, I think it would be very helpful not just to have a guest lecturer but for a couple of us to be assigned in charge of designing/leading a seminar with that guest. If anyone has connections to LA Times journalists or other awesome people in the media and outside the Claremont bubble, it would be great to bribe them to campus with some-crust or something. Also, I would like to work with a lot of the professors in and out of media studies as guest lesturers. For example, maybe the people interested in race/ethnic or national identities and film/media could work on a class with Prof. Phyllis Jackson. Just a thought. This way the people who have a deep personal interest can delve deeper in while the rest of us still reap the benefits.
Caitlin: I think it would be interesting to also focus on specific directors and their effects on film and media. Talking about international film may be interesting as well.
Nikki Morin: - I like the idea of guest speakers, and think that incorporating the student-organizational/collaborative element by inviting speakers and shaping the lecture/workshop along a theme is a good spin off of the type of creative involvement our profs wanted us to have. Inviting professors who specialize in certain areas that we are interested in, in addition to industry people if that is possible, would be fantastic. They would be good lecturers and resources since they could also recommend subtopics and further theorists/research. - I would like to see examples of past projects and theses in the Critical Studies track, perhaps being used as precedents for good particular aspects. - I also like Caitlin's idea of investigating international film, or maybe even more broadly, certain international media industries and the differences and similarities to those of the US. - and definitely a workshop or two on guidelines and what is expected of us concerning theses. Detailed information on the processes of research and writing the thesis would be helpful.
Susana: I would like to suggest some additional topics: Media literacy/education, Globalization/Media, & an examination of the internal mechanics of industry (i guess what I am refering to is the way 5 corporations own the media--what has been adoringly dubbed by some the entertainment industrial complex). I'm also interested in censorship and the MPAA. This film is not yet rated, anyone?
Also, so far we have thrown out topics, but has anyone any idea of the type of theories/scholarly takes we would like to pair with each?
Irene: I remember a couple people bringing up topics of journalism, even sports and broadcasting. I interned at Fox Sports Net this summer and could possibly convince the head of the Assignment Desk at the sports department to come in to speak on these topics if we wanted to. As for my interests, I was hoping we could perhaps focus on aspects of personality and gender development through media culture and representations. And I am completely with the idea of student workshops where we can also have the opportunity to see past students' work, etc.
Courtney Peterson: I really agree with Devin on having a lecture on writing a thesis....breaking it up into two sections, how to write, and how to research would be pretty effective, considering our types of research we can pull from an overwhelming multitude or sources. I feel like we're all in agreement on that one. As we discussed on Monday, I feel that the list Will came up with is a pretty good representation of the topics we're interested in. In general, I feel like a mix of theory, instruction, and lecture would be helpful to all of us in producing a presentation/paper at the end of the semester to represent our work. I would also be really interested in exploring not only personality identification in the media, but focusing on the female, whether that be through fashion, journalism, film, etc
Nancy Planitzer: You guys these are all great ideas. I think that we are all going to get alot out of our "new and improved seminar" with that in mind. Tommorow our first class - does anyone know where the seminar is going to be held?
