MCM 150 Text/Media/Culture: Theories of Modern Culture and Media AZOULAY/HONIG

SPRING 2019
Lectures: MW 2-2.50 p.m –
Screenings: Thursdays + Sundays 7-11pm, Sections: TBA

A. Azoulay
Office: MCM, 155 George Street
Office hours: Mondays 11:00-12:00 p.m. or by appointment (email to confirm off. hrs).
 
B. Honig
Office: MCM, 155 George Street
Office hours: Thursdays 2:30-4:00 p.m. (email to confirm off. hrs).

This introductory course explores the meaning of terms like ‘modern,’ ‘culture’ ‘media,’ and ‘text,’
drawing on various theories, historical narratives, and media objects. How do different media practices
- writing, print, photography, cinema, television, digital art, online video, archives and social media –
postulate distinct modes of seeing, thinking, acting, and feeling? How do they open or limit our
capacity to imagine or care for the common world? How do they constitute, partition, undermine or
empower us as subjects and/or communities? We study works drawn from critical race studies,
philosophy of language, feminist, post-colonial, queer and political theory, alongside films, television,
and images. Positioned critically between our fascination/enchantment with new media forms and
wariness of their intrusive or hegemonic powers, this course invites reflection on what it means to read,
view, resist, enlist, and think with media.

Section Leaders:
Julia Huggins, Théo Lepage-Richer, Nathan Lee, Rose Rowson, Harper Shalloe 

IMPORTANT: Disregard your Banner section assignment. Because we need to adjust sections
based on final enrollments, we will assign students to section in the first week of class. We will
announce available times and procedures for sign-up in the first class. Please follow the announced
procedures or you will not be properly enrolled in the course.
NOTE: There will be no discussion section meetings the first week of class.

Expectations for Students Attending Lectures:

Regular attendance at lectures is expected. No screens are allowed during lecture. Please come to class
prepared to take notes by hand. Bring with you printed copies of the reading materials for the day along
with any notes you have taken on the assigned readings and/or films. In some lectures there will be
time for questions or discussion. Please be prepared and be prepared to engage. It is more fun that way.

Total work hours estimated

Over 13 weeks, students will spend 2 hours per week in Lecture (26 hours in total), and another hour
per week in Section (13 hours). Required reading should take approximately 4-8 hours per week (52-
104 hours). Required viewing of films will take about 2-5 hours per week (26-65 hours). Paper
assignments will take students anywhere from 5-10 or more hours each (20-40 or more hours).

STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES AND GRADING

1) SCREENINGS: You are required to attend screenings every week (you may even want to see some
films twice).
Two screenings will be held each week, on Thursday and Sunday nights (both at 7:00pm).
When two or more films are scheduled, they will be shown on the first night in the order listed on the
syllabus, and then in reverse order on the second night. Consult the screening times on the syllabus to
plan when to arrive, but please be aware that the timing cannot be exact, and plan accordingly. Take
notes on the screenings, and review them for weekly discussions and for papers. Paper topics may ask
you to make specific references to screened and written materials.
For papers, you will have online access to re-view already screened materials. This is not a
substitute for attending screenings, however, since this access will not be available until after the
lecture and discussion focused on the assigned materials.

2) READINGS: All readings are on electronic reserve. Students in this course can access them
through CANVAS. PLEASE print out copies of all assigned electronic reserve readings. Bring them to
lectures and discussion sections with you so you can refer to the text. The syllabus shows the schedule
of reading assignments per lecture and Canvas, too, will guide you. Please complete the reading by the
day assigned. Lectures assume familiarity with the readings, and will not restate or summarize them.
Readings as well as screenings will also be central to discussions in section.

3) DISCUSSION SECTION ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION: Attendance is required at

discussion sections. Discussion leaders will take attendance. When you come to section, you are
expected to be ready to discuss all class materials (screenings, lectures, readings) for the week. Excused
absences require medical documentation and approval from a dean as well as your section leader.

4) WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS: Three short papers (3- 4-pages, double-spaced, 12 font) with one
optional rewrite for the 1st or 2nd paper assignment. You will be able to choose from at least two topics
or questions and you should discuss your approach to the assignment with your TA. The aim of these
assignments is for you to delve more deeply into the readings, drawing on themes and concepts from
lectures and screenings that we have studied together. These papers are your opportunity to show you
have understood course materials, and how comfortable you are using them in thinking about modern
culture and media. As you work your way through the course, your range of pertinent concepts, ideas,
themes, and questions will increase, and your papers will become richer and more complex.

This course is a writing-designated course (WRIT). You will receive substantive feedback on your
writing assignments, which should help you improve over the term. The optional rewrite is there for
you if you need it. In addition, there are many resources on campus to support your writing, including
the Writing Center, English Language Learning, and Subject Specialists in the Library.

NOTE: Papers will be due roughly 9 days after topics are distributed in lecture and should be
submitted digitally to your TA. Please discuss the details with your TA. Late papers will be penalized.
Excused lateness requires medical or other documentation to be approved by the dean and your TA.

5) FINAL GRADE: Final grades will be primarily based on three written assignments, each of equal
weight. Your optional rewrite may raise the grade of your 1st or 2nd paper. Discussion section
participation as well as attendance in section and lectures count too. Good preparation, combined with
thoughtful, informed participation in section will help raise your grade, especially if you end up on the
border between grades. But it will also help in other ways, and not just with your grades: talking about
the course materials with others in section is an important part of the learning process.
**Note on plagiarism – do not do it. It results in an automatic F for the assignment and must also be
reported to the Dean’s office. If you come to class, do the reading, attend the screenings, and
participate in section discussions, you will definitely have ideas to write about and you will not be
tempted to take shortcuts. Stay organized, take notes, talk about the materials with fellow students in
class. And when it is time to write a paper, you will find you are already prepared to do it.

Our course’s (Alpine) social contract: Learning without erring is like skiing without falling: you
can’t improve! Lectures and discussions are places to air ideas and sometimes share half-formed
thoughts. Let us not pounce on each other for errors or misstatements or disagreements. We are all
learning together and we will make mistakes. When that happens, let us support each other in our
learning. Let us be generous, assume the best, share our hesitations, criticisms, or differences with each
other (and NOT on social media!) in a respectful way, and work things out amongst ourselves. Faculty
and TA’s will not share with their colleagues anything said by students in class or section, nor will we
record them or post them online, and we expect students to return the courtesy. In this way we all
commit to our joint endeavor - to study: to learn and think together, which is always risky.

COURSE SCHEDULE
Week I: INTRODUCTION to the course

(i)Reading/Materials (Wed/Jan 23) Honig & Azoulay

READ:
Lisa Gitelman, 2014. “Near Print and Beyond Paper: Knowing by *.pdf,” Paper Knowledge: Toward a
Media History of Documents, Duke University Press (111-135)

Week II: TECHNOLOGIES of Empire and Race

Screening:
“I Am Not Your Negro” dir. Raoul Peck, 2017, 93 mins
A Plate of Sardines, dir. Omar Amiralay, Syria, 1997, 18 mins.

(i)Cinema as Archive (Mon/Jan 28) AZOULAY

READ:
Edward Said, 1979. “The Scope of Orientalism,” Orientalism, Penguin Classics (1-30, 226-254).
Edward Said, 1979. The Question of Palestine, Vintage (15-16).
Arago, Dominique François. “Report.” Classic Essays on Photography, ed. Alan Trachtenberg (15-18).

WATCH:
“I Am Not Your Negro” dir. Raoul Peck, 2017, 93 mins
A Plate of Sardines, dir. Omar Amiralay, Syria, 1997, 18 mins

(ii)Critical Fabulation (Wed/Jan 30) AZOULAY

READ:
Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts,” Small Axe, Number 26 (Vol. 12, Number 2), June 2008 (1-14)
Saidiya Hartman, 2007. Lose Your Mother – A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route, Farrar, Straus
and Giroux (15-17).
Jonathan Crary, 1992. Techniques of the Observer – On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth
Century, MIT Press (3-5).

Week III: WHO Are The Subjects of Language, Culture, and Media?

Screening:
Memento, dir. Christopher Nolan, 2001, 120 mins.
50 First Dates (excerpted) (45 mins)

(i)Notes to Self, I: The “proper inlet,” the politics of circulation, and the sovereign subject of
Memento (Mon/Feb 4) HONIG

READ:
John Locke, Essay on Human Understanding (EXCERPT, 5 pages, PDF)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism
(NY: 1983), EXCERPTS from Ch. 2, “Cultural Roots” and Ch. 3, “Origins of National Consciousness”
(24-26, 33-40, 44-45).
Jeannine Marie DeLombard, “Publicizing Personhood” (99-101), Ch. 5 “Apprehending Early African
American Literary History,” Early African-American Print Culture, ed. Cohen and Stein.

WATCH:
Memento, dir. Christopher Nolan
50 First Dates (selected scenes)

(ii)Notes to Self, II: sovereign inscription, writing, print, and videotape (Wed/Feb 6) HONIG

READ:
Jill Lepore, “The Hacking of America” at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/sunday-
review/politics-disruption-media-technology.html
Michael Warner, Letters of the Republic, (read this as a critique of Anderson), Preface (ix-xiv) and
Chapter 4, “Textuality and Legitimacy in the Printed Constitution” (EXCERPT 73-77, 80).
Wittgenstein, (read this as a critique of Locke), Philosophical Investigations, EXCERPT (paragraphs
248, 256, 258-265, 258, 272-4)

Week IV: COUNTER/Interpellation and Fugitivity

Screening:
His Girl Friday, dir. Howard Hawks, 1940, 1h32. *NOTE: this film makes casual use of a couple of
racial slurs, as ‘humor.’ Some critics say these slurs are unnecessary to the film -- we can discuss the
question of the (non-) necessity of the film’s racism in Lecture.
A Flood in Baath Country, dir. Omar Amiralay, Syria, 2003, 46 min

(i)From Sight to Sound, Image to Laughter: (Counter)interpellation (Mon/Feb. 11) HONIG

READ:
Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Lenin and Philosophy and other
essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001), EXCERPT from 85-126: PDF 22 pages.
Helene Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Signs, Vol. 1 No. 4, Summer, 1976 (875-893)

WATCH:
His Girl Friday, dir. Howard Hawks

(ii)Imperial Modernities, Environmental Refugees (Wed/Feb 13) AZOULAY

READ:
Rob Nixon, 2011. “Unimagined Communities: Megadams, Monumental Modernity and Developmental
Refugees, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Harvard University Press (150-174).
Houria Bouteldja, 2017. Whites, Jews, and Us – Toward a Politics of Revolutionary Love,
Semiotext(e), pp. 28-31.

WATCH:
Film: A Flood in Baath Country, director: Omar Amiralay, Syria, 2003, 46 min

*First Paper TOPICS handed out – Due SATURDAY February 23rd 5 PM.

Mon/Feb 18 / No class

Week V: GUEST lecture (Wed/Feb 20) Tony Cokes

Reading TBD

Week VI: COLONIALISM, Documentary & the Rewind

Screening:
Caché [Hidden], dir. Michael Haneke, France [German], 2005, 1h17
13th, dir. Ava DuVernay

(i)“A Terrific Boomerang Effect” (Mon/Feb 25) AZOULAY

READ:
Aimé Césaire, 1972. Discourse on Colonialism, Monthly Review Press, (31-78).
Frantz Fanon, 1965. “This is The Voice of Algeria,” Dying Colonialism, Grove Press (PDF).

WATCH:
Caché [Hidden], dir. Michael Haneke

(ii)Visual Facts, Political Actions (Wed/Feb 27) AZOULAY

READ:
Hannah Arendt, 2005 [1955]. “Introduction Into Politics,” The Promise of Politics, Schocken Books
(93-96, 108-114).
Cedric Robinson, 2007. “In the car 1915: D.W.Griffith and the Rewhitening of America," Forgeries of
Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theater and Film before World
War II, The University of North Carolina Press, pp. 82-126.

WATCH:
13th, dir. Ava DuVernay

Week VII: Violence and The Production of Meaning

Screening:
La Noire de . . . [aka Black Girl] (Ousmane Sembene, Senegal, 1966), 55 min.
BeFreier und Befreite (Liberators Take Liberties), 1992, director: Helke Sander

(i) Archival Interstices: The politics of cultural heritage diplomacy and revisionist cinema histories
Guest Lecture: Regina Longo, MCM (Mon/Mar 4)

READ:
Press release on the FESPACI - World Cinema Foundation-UNESCO partnership, link to UNESCO
official site and press release:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/general-history-of-
africa/sv00/news/partnership_with_the_film_foundations_world_cinema_projec/

Cinema Ritrovato press about World Cinema Foundation projects and their relevance to under
represented film cultures (the Cineteca di Bologna di the restoration of BLACK GIRL that the students
will see in class): https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/sezione/the-film-foundations-world-cinema-
project/  

Sarah Jilani reviews Diop's performance in BLACK GIRL:

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/praise-mbissine-therese-diop-ousmane-
sembene-black-girl-noire
After the 2016 restoration of Sembene's film an African American female critic reviews the
protagonist's performance in light of shifting cultural mores

(ii)Beyond the Visibility/Invisibility Dichotomy (Wed/Mar 6) AZOULAY

READ:
Ariella Azoulay, “The Natural History of Rape,” Postwar: Art between the Pacific and the Atlantic,
1945–1965 (Ed. Okwui Enwezor), Prestel, 2017, pp. 147-155.
Pooja Rangan, 2017. “Bare Liveness to Catastrophe in the Age of Humanitarian Emergency,”
Immediations – The Humanitarian Impulse in Documentary, Duke University Press (61-72).
Eve Tuck, “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities,” Harvard Education Review, Vol 79, No 3,
Fall 2009, pp. 409-424.

WATCH:
La Noire de . . . [aka Black Girl], dir. Ousmane Sembene
BeFreier und Befreite (Liberators Take Liberties), 1992, director: Helke Sander
Week VIII: INDIGENOUS Lives and Queer Theory at the Border, or: the Memento Problem

Screening:

DamNation
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, dir. Tommy Lee Jones

(i)(Un-)Writing Land: How do you craft continuous subjectivity/membership when your relationship
to the dominant community is one of interruption or rupture? (Mon/Mar 11) HONIG 

READ:
Audra Simpson, Mohawk, Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States, Duke
University Press, 2014, Chapter 5, “Borders, Cigarettes, and Sovereignty” (excerpt, 115-121). A.
Simpson, “Consent’s Revenge” at https://culanth.org/articles/818-consent-s-revenge

WATCH:
DamNation

 (ii)Queer Theory Between Past and Future, (Wed/Mar 13) HONIG 

READ:
Lee Edelman, “The Future is Kid Stuff: Queer Theory, Disidentification, and the Death
Drive,” NARRATIVE Vol. 6. No. 1, 1998 (excerpts from 19-30 – PDF 8 pages).

Watch: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, dir. Tommy Lee Jones

*Second Paper TOPICS handed out – Due Friday March 22nd 5 PM

Week IX: LABOR-Free and Free Labor

Screening:
The Cleaners, dir. Hans Block & Moritz Riesewick, 2018, 1h30.

(i) Kitchen, Work, Wage (Mon/Mar 18) AZOULAY

READ:
Silvia Federici, Nicole Cox, 2012 [1975]. “Counterplanning from the Kitchen. “ Revolution at Point
Zero – Housework, Reproduction and Feminist Struggle, Common motions (28-40).
Hannah Arendt, 2000. “Labor, Work, Action,” The Portable Hannah Arendt (Ed. P. Baehr), 167-181.
Tiziana Terranova, "Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy," Social Text 63 (Volume
18, Number 2), Summer 2000, pp. 33-58.

WATCH:
The Cleaners, dir. Hans Block & Moritz Riesewick

(ii)Theo Lepage-Richer, MCM Guest lecture (Wed/Mar 20)

SPRING BREAK

Week X: WORLDLESSNESS and Worldliness

Screening:
Bamako, dir. Abderrhmane Sissako, 2006, 1h57.

(i)Alienation, Remoteness, Worldlessness (Mon/Apr 1) Azoulay

READ:
Hannah Arendt, “The Vita Activa and the Modern Age,“ The Human Condition, The University of
Chicago Press (248-293).

WATCH:
Bamako, dir. Abderrhmane Sissako

(ii) Julia Huggins, MCM Guest Lecture (Wed/Apr 3)

Week XI: SURVEILLANCE / Sousveillance

Screening:
The Battle of Algiers, dir. Gillo Pontecorvo, 2h1min

(i):Unveiling & Stop-motion Watching (Mon/Apr 8) AZOULAY

READ:
Simone Browne, 2015. “Notes on Surveillance Studies – Through the Door of No Return,” Dark
Matters – On The Surveillance of Blackness, Duke University Press (31-62).
Frantz Fanon, 1965. “Algeria Unveiled,” Dying Colonialism, Grove Press (35-50).

WATCH:
The Battle of Algiers, dir. Gille Pontecorvo

(ii)Harper Shalloe, MCM Guest lecture (Wed/Apr 10)

Week XII: MEDIA-Sutured Subjectivities, Sexualities, Temporalities

Screening:
Modern Times, dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1936, 1h 27 min
Mad Men, “The Wheel” (60 mins)
The (U.K.) Queen’s Christmas address (1957 and 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBRP-
o6Q85s 117567 (then links to 2017) (total about 20 mins).
“This is Your Life,” Muhammad Ali https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWZOBX1vE7A (60 mins)

(i)Aura, Assemblage, and the Powers of Sound (Mon/Apr 15) HONIG

READ:
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts from 1844 EXCERPT on alienated labor (PDF 6
pages), and Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (Preamble and Ch. 1 – PDF 11 pages)
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility” [Second Version]
(19-42) and “Chaplin” (333-334)
Ayad Akhtar, “An Antidote to Digital Dehumanization? Live Theater” NYTimes, Dec. 29, 2017
Ways of Seeing (BBC – Episode 1), dir. John Berger, EXCERPT [01:37-10:36]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk

WATCH:
Modern Times, dir. Charlie Chaplin
Ways of Seeing (BBC, Episode 1), dir. John Berger (1:37-10:36) https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=0pDE4VX_9Kk
In class, 2 clips from Singin’ in the Rain (“Well, of course we talk…”).

(ii)From Salons to Saloons, Tattoos, Polaroids, Images, and TV in Circulation: Sutured Subjectivity
and Ambient Sovereignty in This is Your Life, Mad Men (“The Wheel”) and “The Kiss,”
(Wed/Apr 17) HONIG

READ:
Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture,
and Liberal Democracy, Introduction (EXCERPT 1-19) + p. 287 from Conclusion
Anna McCarthy, Ambient Television, Ch. 1, “TV, Class, and Social Control in the 1940’s
Neighborhood Tavern” (EXCERPT 29-38)

WATCH:
Mad Men, “The Wheel”
The (U.K.) Queen’s Christmas address (1957 and 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBRP-
o6Q85s 117567 (then links to 2017) (total about 20 mins).
“This is Your Life,” Muhammad Ali https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWZOBX1vE7A (1 hour)

In class, The Queen’s speech episode of The Crown (EXCERPT)

WEEK XIII: New/Old Media Nostalgia

Screening:
California Typewriter, dir. Doug Nichol
Wall-e

(i) Rose Rowson, MCM guest lecture (Mon/Apr 22)

(ii)Typewriters, Touch, and Media Nostalgia (Wed/Apr 24) HONIG

READ:
Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, Ch. 5
“Technology and People” (EXCERPT 118-31) and “Epilogue: The Uncertain Climb” (EXCERPT 261-
267).
Miriam Jordan, Jon E. Hilsenrath, “America Talks, India Types Up Transcript,” Wall Street Journal
(March 16, 2000).
Caroline Jones, “Senses,” in Critical Terms for Media Studies (88-98).
Al Jazeera Media Theorized: Marshall McLuhan (2 mins) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=09ML9n5f1fE

WATCH:
California Typewriter, dir. Doug Nichol
Wall-e

*Third Paper TOPICS handed out – Due Saturday May 4th, 5 PM