| Cultural Studies:
Possible Topics for group report and paper (I)
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Beware of generalization. (It''s hard, if not impossible, to make general statements about culture.)
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Be text-specific. (Give specific examples.)
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Be coherent. (Give a central argument.)
 Unit I
Unit II
Unit III
Cultures: Transmission & Connections
Unit I
I. Major themes for Unit I: A. identity--male and female quest narrative, (poetic) creation and creation of a monster,
B. Culture as Practice but not Product, Articulation, Regulation & Production
You can choose to discuss an issue related to one of these themes with the support of your own examples.
- Possible Issues:
- Is quest (religious or Romantic) possible today? Where do we see most of the quest narratives today? In what ways are they different from the Romantic quest? Give specific examples.
- Do today''s sci-fi films still express the fears of creation, or creation of a monster? Explain your answer.
- Is it possible for us (or an artist) to resist economic or ideological determinism? Is autonomy possible?
- Standardization--In consuming a standardized product, do we get standardized too? In other words, do we only have a false sense of identity (pseudo identity) when wearing C. Klein?
- Articulation--Discuss how two discourses (e.g. individualism and patriotism) are brought together to exert more control on us. You can also bring together two texts as a way of analyzing the (trans-)formation, circulation, or traveling of cultures.
II. Literary Texts
- Other poems from The Lyrical Ballads on the rustics (e.g. "Michael", "The Ruined Cottage")
- Keats'' Odes
- Other Shorter Romantic Poems on Imagination or quest (e.g. "Kubla Khan" by Coleridge, Immortality Ode & "Tinturn Abbey" by Wordsworth, "Ode to the West Wind" & "To a Skylark" by Shelley, etc.)
III. Popular Culture:
- Different versions of Frankenstein: Kenneth Branagh''s Mary Shelley''s Frankenstein, Mel Brook''s Young Frankenstein, Woody Allen''s Frankenstein episode from Everything you Wanted to Know about Sex but Dare not Ask, Mary Shelley''s Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein
- George Michael''s songs
TOP
Unit II
I. Areas and Topics
| Theory |
Late 19-c England |
Contemporary Taiwan |
representation--constructions of meanings/identity
- semiotic approach (signification & myth)
- discursive approach
(discourse & power)
ways of seeing--
- painters'' (producers''), patrons'' & spectators'', men''s and women''s, consumer''s and critics''--different ways of encoding and decoding
- subject positions
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Pre-Raphaelite painting and poetry--texts by
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
- Christina Rossetti
- other Pre-Raphaelite painters or poets
- late-Victorian writers (e.g. Alice in the Wonderland).
themes
evolution/frustration of Romantic quest
representation of women in 19-century literature or culture
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Visual Culture in Taipei/Taiwan
- the use of TV (computer) screen--on TV, in Taiwanese popular culture or "art"
- self-reflexivity
- hyperspace (e.g. MTV, 電視牆)
- visual images --of women, of painting, signs of wealth, etc.
- the relations between power and (female) body in --body sculpture, nude paintings and performances (許曉丹）, ads and commercials.
- Taiwanese romance (e.g. 瓊瑤）or love songs as a discourse
- And a lot of other choices!
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II. Issues for discussion and papers
(Please go to the Culture Talk pages for specific issues)
- How is myth created out of certain commercials, ads, or government propaganda?
- How is subject (subject positions) constructed in a text, a discourse, in the nineteenth century or present?
- What are the standardized (or popular) images (e.g. of women) in contemporary Taiwanese culture? What do these images do (construct)?
- What do images do to the words around them? Will images substitute words? Will we be reading images only?
- What are the relations between discourse, power and subject? Can you use one discourse to analyze how it produces and circulates power and construct subjects?
- How do we as reader-critics deal with these myths, ideologies, discourses, images or image culture (sound-bite culture?
TOP
Cultures: Transmission & Connections
| From Romantic Poetry |
to Taipei Streets |
- Quest
a. for coherent, growing, unique, and heroic identity
b. artistic creation
c. Romantic love
d. the contradictory roles of female artists and female characters
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Migration
- Wandering, immigration, exile
- Cyborg identity in Sci-fi fictions and in daily life
- In popular songs and soap opera
- Images of women
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- Modernist Artist
- concern with artist''s isolation (Bildungsroman)
from Modernism to Postmodernism
increasing fragmentation & uncertainties of identity
multinational capitalism
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Taiwanese Modernism
- the influence of U.S. modernism
e.g. 1956紀弦的《現代詩》; 1960《現代文學》
王文興《家變》
- identity crisis
(individual, national)
70 年代──現代詩論戰
鄉土文學論戰
e.g. 鄉愁詩，中國現代民歌校園歌曲
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TOP
Unit III--under construction!
I. Areas and Topics
| Theory |
Late 19-c England |
Contemporary Taiwan |
globalization & cultural imperialism
ways of consumption
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Taiwanese texts about (im)migration --texts by
themes
Romantic quest--its frustration & counterparts (imperialism & third-world migration)
representation of cyborg/women in 平路
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"Global" Culture in Taipei/Taiwan
--e.g. popular songs, MacDonald''s, MTV channel, CNN, etc.
Cyborg identities
And a lot of other choices!
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II. Issues for discussion and papers
- globalization or localization
- Do we need to listen, or study, lyrics in popular songs?
TOP
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