This is the page for: Understanding English & American Pop Culture

(Course-related content will appear here in reverse chronological order: the newest things at the top of the page, and older posts toward the bottom.)

Feedback Poll for Superheroes Discussion

Here is the Feedback form for the last panel discussion.I’ll be posting a feedback poll for the MP3 lecture later today. Please fill it out honestly — it won’t affect your grade — as it will help me make my classes better in the future.

Feedback Poll for Beats/Hippies Panel Discussion

Here’s the feedback poll for the panel discussion of the Beats and Hippies from today.

Feedback Poll for Panel Discussion #3: SF as a Foreign Language AND Lecture #3 — “The Beats and the Hippies” (plus reading materials)

Here is the poll for the most recent panel discussion. Click on the link to provide feedback. Remember, providing feedback is a form of class participation and will reflect positively on your grade!

Here is the(partial) MP3 lecture #3 — “The Beats and the Hippies.” I could have talked about more, such as the role the Beats and Hippies played in the growth of the environmental movement, the Hippies and the Vietnam War protest movement (and the Woodstock Music Festival), and religious ideas explored by the Beats and their relationship to American religion. However, I wanted to stay focused on the connections between these movements, and their specifically youth-culture elements.

Here’s are some links to videos of Ginsberg reading his poems “America” and “Howl” (part 1 | part 2 | part 3), both of which are included in your readings pack.

In addition, feel free to check out Jack Kerouac reading from his novel On the Road, this conversation between Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs reading from Junkie, his novel about drug addicts in New York City.

I encourage you to read more on your own about the issues I didn’t touch upon. However, I will direct your attention to the following texts specifically, which will be of use for class discussion:

Optional Readings:

Lectures of “Flappers” and “SF & The Western Mind”

Mediafire, the file hosting service where I uploaded the Flapper Lecture, is somehow suddenly down. So I’ve created an archive containing both of this weekend’s lectures: SF and the Western Mind, and Flappers, to one archive, on a more stable download page. You can get the archive here. As for the powerpoint of the Flapper lecture, it’s viewable here on Google Docs. However, it will play itself, so you might want to pause it an advance it as you listen to the lecture.There’s no slide presentation for the SF lecture, just the audio! Please have a listen to at least the Flapper lecture. I’ll say more about SF class on Tuesday, and take questions on both lectures. If you don’t listen to the SF lecture before Tuesday, please try listen to it before Thursday, as it’s relevant to the panel discussion happening that day.

Second Update — Feedback for the Marilyn Monroe Panel Discussion

Hi folks,

I just realized that I forgot to share with you the link to the feedback form for the most recent panel discussion. Here it is.  That lecture on SF is coming sometime on Sunday!

UPDATE: That Lecture on SF

My lecture on SF is coming, but I got busy and couldn’t finish preparing it in time (as of Saturday 6pm) and I have an appointment soon, so I’ll get it online sometime in the next 24 hours or so… probably late tonight, but possibly tomorrow morning. Worst-case scenario, you’ll find it by 6pm Sunday evening, but probably much sooner than that. I’ll add it to this post when it’s ready!

Our Insane Schedule

Folks,

Before I get into our schedule: we’ve lost a student, and predictably, he was scheduled to participate in the last panel discussion, which only had three people to begin with. I’m looking for a volunteer to take part in that last panel discussion and talk about comic book superheroes for fifty minutes. If nobody volunteers by the time our next class rolls around, one of you will be chosen randomly. (But volunteering will be good for your participation mark.) First person to volunteer gets the job!

EDIT: The empty slot has been filled. No more need for volunteers for our final panel discussion, though if you are dying to talk about superheroes, I will accept one more person for that final panel discussion!

Now, our schedule: Organizing make-up classes for a group of our size is hell, so I’m going to go with the MP3 lecture method. That means we can do two things: cover more material while still allowing class discussion of the lectures and reading material, and cover that material outside class without all having to be together.

In the light of that, Tuesday will be devoted to two things: discussion of the Flapper Lecture I posted, and the lecture on SF and its influence on the Western mind that I’ll post sometime later today.

Tuesday’s class (1 June) will be purely discussion of these lectures. Please listen to them before class, and take notes, and come to class with any questions you might have.

For Thursday, 3 June, we’ll have a panel discussion on the idea of “SF as a foreign language.”

The idea of this discussion is the question of whether SF is specifically, culturally, American — a notion Thomas Disch has argued in parts of his book The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of. SF is much less popular in Korea than in the Western world, especially the English-speaking world. Are the reasons for this cultural? What cultural differences do we see expressed in the structures, ideology, and discourses that form the basis of American SF? What facets of Invasion of the Body Snatchers are specifically American? How non-American (specifically French) is The Fifth Element? In your own cultures (this discussion this day includes Chinese, Russian, and Korean students — and SF is far more developed and accepted in Russia and China than in Korea, according to scholars), do you feel the local form of SF is influenced by American SF, or developed independently? How different is it from American SF?

Preparations:

Participants:

On Tuesday, June 8th, we’ll have a discussion for the first hour, regarding another MP3 lecture I’ll be uploading during the week before, dealing with the connection between Hippie and Beat culture, and their place within American culture generally.

The second half of class on June 8th will be another Panel Discussion: Does Korea “Need� a Beat or Hippie Generation?

Commentators on the differences between Korean and American culture sometimes compare Korea to America in the 1950s in terms of the stresses forming between youth culture and “adult” culture, but also because of specific cultural factors present in Korea, and because of an assumption about how cultures change. Commentators who make such comparisons tend to believe that Korea “needs”– for various reasons — to undergo the kinds of changes that occurred in America in the 1950s. This is, of course, a very American perspective, but the questions it raises are interesting: Do cultures, as they modernize, pass through the same kinds of stages? Were the changes that the beats and hippies introduced into American culture wholly positive? Is such a thing as a beat or hippie generation even possible in Korea at the present time? Will such a thing — and such social changes — ever be possible in Korea? Why or why not? And if so, is this a desirable change?

Preparations:

Participants:

Finally, our last Panel Discussion, on Thursday, 10 June, will be done without a lecture. Instead, I will provide you with some reading that promises to be better than my lecture would be in any case! The title of the Panel Discussion is  Heroism and Other Discourses from the World of Comic Books:

The idea of heroism is one which is probably present in some form or other in every society. However,  the notion of super-heroism as we see in comics and, increasingly in recent years, in film is somewhat different. While it’s possible to argue that Gilgamesh or Hong Gildong were superhero-like figures — and indeed, a lot of the propaganda in North Korea presents Kim Il-Sung in ways that are strangely similar to superhero comics — the superhero trope is, in some ways, a distinctly American creation. Several changes have occurred in the idea of superheroes, however: one of the most profound is the “secularization” of the superhero. Early on, superheroes normally had super-powers, with Superman being the best — but far from the only — example.

Batman was one of the first superheroes to become vastly popular without super-powers — only gadgets, intelligence, and passion for justice. Now, this kind of superhero is growing more and more popular in the mainstream, from The Watchmen to Iron Man and even Kick-Ass. What tropes, discourses, and anxieties do we see in Superhero narratives of  both types, and what do they reveal about American society and culture?

Preparations:

Participants:

The Flapper (MP3 Lecture & PPT)

Here, as promised, are links for downloading the Flapper lecture, and Powerpoint:

I’ll be adding a lecture sometime this weekend on “How SF Changed the Western Mind.” I’d appreciate it if you would check back for it, and listen to it for next week, along with the readings I’ve assigned you.

I’ll also be rearranging our panel discussions schedule, so do check back. I’ll add notes for each, to suggest possible areas of exploration, but as usual you are free to do what you like with the discussion: take it in directions I didn’t suggest, find other ways of talking about it, and so on.

Updated Panel Discussion Schedule

Folks, here’s the updated schedule for our class’s Panel Discussions and lectures for this semester, which I had to rearrange because of all the events this semester on Tuesdays.Some of the readings and preparations are still TBA. As well, it’s looking like lecture time is getting to be too short, so I may indeed change some of my scheduled lectures to MP3 lectures, so you can download and listen before class, and then we can discuss any questions you might have during our precious classtime!

Note that there will be one makeup class held this semester. Hopefully we can have it during an afternoon where most or all students can attend, and then we can go out for a bit together afterward.

Note also that this may still change somewhat. I’ll let you know if anything big changes, and will post about it here!

13 May: Madonna — a modern flapper? Preparation for Audience:

Participants:

27 May: Do Some Still Like It Hot? On Marilyn Monroe, Two Generations LaterPreparations:

Participants:

Makeup class: Saturday, May 29th (or another date if necessary): 

First Hour: Lecture — How SF Changed the Western  Mind

Second Hour: Panel Discussion: SF as a Foreign Language

Preparations:

Participants:

1 June:Lecture — How SF Changed the Western Imagination (End) and Beats, Hippies, Straights, and the Politics of Youth Culture3 June:Second Hour — Panel Discussion: Panel Discussion: Does Korea “Need” a Beat or Hippie Generation?Preparations:

Participants:

8 June: Lecture – Beats, Hippies, Straights, and the Politics of Youth Culture (end) and Man and Superman, and Super-”girl”?10 June: Heroism and Other Discourses from the World of Comic BooksPreparations:

Participants:

Madonna and the Flappers Feedback Form

Folks,You can give feedback on the first panel discussion here.Thanks, and see you in a little over a week!

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