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124183 VK BEd 08b.3: VK Cultural Studies and Language Education (2023S)

Enacting a Softer Masculinity: The Mysterious Case of Lt. Columbo - Reading Detective Genres and Analyzing Masculinity Enactments on TV Screens

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 12 - Anglistik
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Please remember: attendance in this VK is mandatory!
Registered students who do not show up to the first session without an excuse will be de-registered.
This is an in-person/on-site class.

  • Friday 10.03. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 17.03. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 24.03. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 31.03. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 21.04. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 28.04. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 05.05. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 12.05. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 19.05. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 26.05. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 02.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 09.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 16.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 23.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19
  • Friday 30.06. 12:15 - 13:45 Raum 4 Anglistik UniCampus Hof 8 3E-EG-19

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

The TV series Columbo-in syndication between 1968 and 2003-was a TV success story. It not only turned the ‘who-did-it’ concept on its head but confronted audiences with a rather unique male hero. Lt. Columbo was calm, soft-spoken, laid back, afraid of heights but most of all smart and perceptive, instead of displaying a more normatively masculine demeanor: aggression, a willingness to do violence, and brandishing guns and chasing criminal suspects down the streets of L.A. He presented a sharp contrast to other TV-detectives populating the American TV landscape at the time: from hard-boiled detectives like Mike Hammer to tough cops like Lt. Mike Stone in the TV series The Streets of San Francisco.

This course attempts a reading of the TV series in connection with masculinity studies as well as TV and media studies. If the performative act of gender is, as Judith Butler clarifies, “a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint”(Butler, 2004:1); then what are the improvisations Lt. Columbo-whose first name the series never discloses-is enacting? And how may looking at (detective) masculinities from all angles turn into a topic of interest for the English-language classroom?

Students will use critical theory tools taken from gender studies, TV studies and post- structural theory to discuss questions like:
• What are ideas about masculinities that inform the TV show and especially its male protagonist?
• If hegemonic masculinity“is naturalized in the form of the hero and presented through forms that revolve around heroes”(Donaldson, 1996:646) of which detective fiction surely is one, then how does the character of Lt. Columbo ‘re-arrange’ what it means to embody hegemonic manhood?

Assessment and permitted materials

Requirements:

Semi-weekly readings of secondary sources (available via Moodle)
Attendance and active participation in course discussions (a maximum of two absences [3 hrs] will be allowed);
An oral presentation (a teaching approach);
An abstract;
A term paper;
A final exam

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

• Active participation in class discussions: 20%
• Final exam: 20%
• Presentation (teaching approach): 20%
• Abstract: pass/fail
• Term paper: 40%

To pass the course, students need to attain at least 60% and complete all assignments.

Examination topics

Semi-weekly Readings
Materials/Concepts discussed in class

Reading list

TV- Episode Watchlist:
“Murder by the book” (1971)
“Murder under Glass” (1878)
“Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo” (1990)

Association in the course directory

Studium: BEd 046/407
Code/Modul: BEd 08b.3
Lehrinhalt: 12-4686

Last modified: Fr 10.03.2023 19:48