FULL SYLLABUS (DOWNLOAD)
The course will offer an introduction to pornography, which is defined as sexually explicit media within different cinematic traditions and digital screen cultures. The aim of the course is to show that pornography is a not a unified screen culture but consists of varied representations within cultural contexts. The course will teach students how to analyze these representations and how to take into account their cultural histories.
The course will take a Cultural Studies approach and examine pornography within specific cultural environments and include the positions of anti-porn and pro-porn activists. Therefore students will get an overview of diverging perspectives while being encouraged to consider their own values and critical responses. Students will be asked to respond to theories and audio-visual examples, while actively partaking in debates about pornography and its impact on religeon, gender, sexuality, health, labor and the economy. Finally, the course will pay special importance to how contemporary sexually explicit media are impacting new user groups such young adult netizens, female consumers, disabled people, as well as ethnic and sexual minorities.
Students will carry out a major assignment while learning how to apply ethnographic research methods to analyze representations of the body and sexuality within screen cultures. In this assignment, they will focus on a media environment/platform and a sexual culture of their choice to find out how culture is being redefined and visualized by media users. Two workshops will be organized in the media lab in order to train the students in different methods and perspectives on digital ethnography
STUDENT REFLECTIONS :::::WRITTEN AND POSTED BEFORE EACH SESSION, IN WHICH STUDENTS RESPOND TO VARIOUS READINGS, MOVIES
STUDENT REFLECTIONS ON ANG LEE LUST, CAUTION
STUDENT REFLECTIONS ON MIREILLE MILLER-YOUNG
Mireille Miller-Young, Interventions: The Deviant and DeFiant Art of Black Women Porn Directors
EXCERPTS FROM STUDENTS ORAL PRESENTATIONS