SOCI 50119/GNSE 45327/ENGL 45327/CMST 67827

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M/W 1:30-2:50pm / Crerar Library 134

Patrick Jagoda | pjagoda@uchicago.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday 3:30-5:30pm (Weston Game Lab)

Kristen Schilt | kschilt@uchicago.edu

Office Hours: Wednesday 9-11am (SSRB 320)

Media theory frequently focuses on issues of technology as opposed to, or at the cost of, politics and culture. This course reorients attention to the intersection of media and cultural theory. We begin by reviewing key media theories from the Frankfurt School (e.g., Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin) and the Birmingham School (e.g., Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, the Women’s Studies Group). Following a historical introduction, we explore the contemporary field of cultural media theory as it has unfolded in both the humanities and the social sciences. Students will think through how the sites of race, class, gender, and sexuality might frame and always already influence the ways that we think of media — from the broadcast media of Adorno and Horkheimer’s culture industry that included radio, film, and television to contemporary pointcasting that is made up of digital and networked technologies. Alongside readings in an expanded media theory, we will engage artistic and cultural works, including literature, films, television serials, smart phone apps, video games, social media, and algorithms. We also explore methodological differences in media studies between the humanities (e.g., close reading, distant reading, historicism, critical theory, critical making) and the social sciences (e.g., ethnography, participant observation, surveys, content analysis, social theory). The course will culminate with a conference that includes three external speakers and during which students will present papers about a range of topics related to the course theme of the politics of media. 

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