Popular Culture ((3))

Catalog description

The goal of this course is to provide students an introduction to some of the theoretical, methodological, and substantive themes in popular culture through a sociological lens. Broadly, popular culture includes cultural practices and rituals, entertainment (such as television, movies, popular music, comics, magazines, etc.), lifestyle/leisure activities, and technology/social media. After a brief overview of understanding culture through a sociological perspective, we will explore the origins of popular culture, its distinction from high culture, and the theories that have aided in analyzing popular culture themes and trends sociohistorically. We will also explore the production, commodification, and consumption of popular culture, how audiences take in popular culture forms, and then examine how popular culture socially constructs race-ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality, as well as how people use popular culture to express resistance and struggle in society.