Writing-Based Inquiry Seminars:
Descriptions for Fall 2008
(please note: section topics and descriptions are subject to change)
Title: Reading America
Course: WBIS 188
Section: 009, 016
Instructor: Lensing, Dennis
More than any generation in history, ours is inundated with images, advertisements, magazines, newspapers, television shows, movies, and digital media. At first glance, all these media might seem rather simple: The news is there to give us the facts. Sitcoms and reality shows meanwhile provide mindless entertainment and amusement. Advertisements, of course, seek to part us from our money. However, the reality of our new, media-saturated environment proves upon closer examination to be much more complex than many consumers believe, both in the United States and, in the age of globalization, around the world.
In this class, we will examine and analyze the culture that we absorb every day, but we will be doing so in new ways that will likely be novel and unfamiliar. Every show, every ad, every news story carries with it implicit political messages about gender, about race, about sexuality, and about economic class that work to shape the ways each of us look at the world. It's crucial that we work to wake up to these narratives, and that is the goal of this course.