124000 VO STEOP: Introduction to Anglophone Cultures and Societies (2019S)

This course is designed as a lecture with interactive elements. It aims to do several things: to introduce you to cultural studies, some of its major schools, key terms, approaches and methods; to equip you with useful tools of analysis and help you practice using them on textual as well as non-textual cultural objects; to offer glimpses into the history of Anglophone cultures and societies with a focus on Britain from the Middle Ages to the present; to provide you with information on how processes of meaning making and their interaction with power structures and identity formation (class, race, gender, desire, age) have been theorized. Examples will include the mappa mundi at Hereford Cathedral as well as graphic novels; draw on the Magna Charta as well as on representations of the Brexit talks; discuss historically differing world views ranging from the Great Chain of Being to Samuel Smiles's Self-Help; touch on cultural practices from bear baiting to Night of the Proms and the Rugby Six Nations; include portraits of Elizabeth I. as well as clips from Peter Morgan's The Crown; take a look at representations of the last traditional and the first mechanised war; follow the polemic debate on Darwinism in 19th century Britain and the fight between evolution vs. creationism in the US of the early 21st century; discuss Hogarth's take on 18th century London and take a look at how the city is depicted in Sherlock; sound out excerpts from Yes Minister and understand the role of Händel's soundtrack to the coronation ceremony; bridge the gap between the BBC version of House of Cards to Westminster Abbey via the portcullis and compare its message to that of the inverted flag as an icon of the US version.