16.7 4th year Jodi Brooks. First semester One 2-hour seminar per week. Students who complete this subject successfully will:

• examine the cultural formations of modes of spectatorship and consumerism in mass culture;
• be familiar with the distinctions that have been made between high culture, low culture and mass culture;
• undertake close readings of some of the central theoretical debates around mass culture, consumerism and spectatorship, in particular, the work of Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, and Susan Buck-Morss;
• develop an understanding of the ways consumerism and spectatorship in regard to visual media - and mass culture more generally - have been theorised and implicitly gendered in the twentieth century;
• develop the critical skills to draw on and critique these debates in analyses of contemporary media forms.

This methodology-based subject provides students with an in-depth understanding of theories of spectatorship and the ways modes of spectatorship have been gendered in theoretical work. It will entail close readings of some of the central debates around spectatorship and mass culture - in particular the work of Walter Benjamin and Susan Buck-Morss - and will draw on these debates to examine the theorisation of a number of contemporary popular media forms. Written work of not more than 6,000 words. Course reader available from the department Benjamin W Illuminations. Benjamin W Reflections. Benjamin W Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. Buck-Morss S The Dialectics of Seeing. Huyssen A After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture and Postmodernism. Screenings (films, commercial and independent TV): Ottinger U Ticket of No Return. Braderman J Joan Does Dynasty. Ant Farm The Amarillo News Tapes. Episodes of Roseanne. 16.7 4th year Jodi Brooks. First semester One 2-hour seminar per week. Students who complete this subject successfully will:

• examine the cultural formations of modes of spectatorship and consumerism in mass culture;
• be familiar with the distinctions that have been made between high culture, low culture and mass culture;
• undertake close readings of some of the central theoretical debates around mass culture, consumerism and spectatorship, in particular, the work of Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, and Susan Buck-Morss;
• develop an understanding of the ways consumerism and spectatorship in regard to visual media - and mass culture more generally - have been theorised and implicitly gendered in the 20th century;
• develop the critical skills to draw on and critique these debates in analyses of contemporary media forms.

This methodology-based subject provides students with an in-depth understanding of theories of spectatorship and the ways modes of spectatorship have been gendered in theoretical work. It will entail close readings of some of the central debates around spectatorship and mass culture - in particular the work of Walter Benjamin and Susan Buck-Morss and will draw on these debates to examine the theorisation of a number of contemporary popular media forms. Written work of not more than 6,000 words. Course reader available from the department Benjamin W Illuminations. Benjamin W Reflections. Benjamin W Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. Buck-Morss S The Dialectics of Seeing. Huyssen A After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture and Postmodernism. Screenings (films, commercial and independent TV): Ottinger U Ticket of No Return. Braderman J Joan Does Dynasty. Ant Farm The Amarillo News Tapes. Episodes of Roseanne.