Queering Popular Culture (807P4B)
Queering Popular Culture
Module 807P4B
Module details for 2023/24.
30 credits
FHEQ Level 7 (Masters)
Module Outline
This option offers students the chance to explore lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer contributions to, and perspectives on, the key fields of popular culture - film, television, the press, popular music, fashion and style. Topics for detailed study will include lesbian representation in mainstream television genres; cinematic homosexualities and their historical context; lesbian and gay 'community television'; contemporary lesbian and gay magazines and newspapers; queer pop from David Bowie to the Pet Shop Boys and beyond; sexuality and style politics; the pleasures and problematics of camp. It investigates issues of representation, consumption and interpretation; unravels debates over stereotyping, subcultures and sensibilities; and asks whether a specifically 'queered' critique of the existing academic discourses used in the study of popular culture is conceptually feasible and/or politically desirable. Students who take the option can expect to sharpen and deepen their skills in interdisciplinary cultural analysis, and there will be a particular emphasis on a self-reflexive examination of (y)our own popular cultural tastes and practices, exploring the connections and contradictions between theoretical accounts of popular images and forms and our experiential investments in them as consumers located in (or interested in) sexual minorities. There will be considerable emphasis placed on a variety of teaching and learning methods - this is not an option where students are considered empty vessels into which the requisite measures of theory are poured. And its approach is unrepentantly interdisciplinary - there is no overarching theoretical model to which you will be obliged to subscribe. Students with or without backgrounds in cultural studies will be made equally welcome.
Module learning outcomes
Critical awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer contributions to, and perspectives on, a range of popular cultural forms
Originality in the application of cultural analysis
Critical evaluation of a wide range of popular tastes and practices, including self-reflexive analysis
Production of a self-directed research paper
| Type | Timing | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | 100.00% | |
| Coursework components. Weighted as shown below. | ||
| Essay | A2 Week 1 | 100.00% |
Timing
Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.
Weighting
Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.
| Term | Method | Duration | Week pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring Semester | Seminar | 2 hours | 11111111110 |
How to read the week pattern
The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.
Dr Charlie Jeffries
Convenor, Assess convenor
/profiles/580214
Dr Rob Sharp
Assess convenor
/profiles/349998
Please note that the University will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver courses and modules in accordance with the descriptions set out here. However, the University keeps its courses and modules under review with the aim of enhancing quality. Some changes may therefore be made to the form or content of courses or modules shown as part of the normal process of curriculum management.
The University reserves the right to make changes to the contents or methods of delivery of, or to discontinue, merge or combine modules, if such action is reasonably considered necessary by the University. If there are not sufficient student numbers to make a module viable, the University reserves the right to cancel such a module. If the University withdraws or discontinues a module, it will use its reasonable endeavours to provide a suitable alternative module.