Syllabus 1.37. This syllabus
WILL change online and YOU are responsible for the current version. (If you’re coming to class, this will not be
a problem, as I will mention changes.)
ANT 322H - ANTHROPOLOGY OF YOUTH
CULTURE
Dr. Dylan Clark, Assistant Professor,
Required books—please purchase:
v Duncombe, Stephen. 2002. Cultural Resistance Reader. NY: Verso. (referred to as SD in the syllabus to follow.)
v
v We will also have handouts and readings available on CCNET, on the UT library system, and on the Internet.
The course is predicated on the study of “youth,” a word we need to quickly call into question. “Youth,” after all, varies tremendously across time, space, and that stuff we might call “culture.” And yet, after acknowledging the shaky notion of “youth,” we might fruitfully investigate some sort of period human life. For this course, we’ll forego any study of small children, and turn instead to “adolescents” and “young adults.” Our study will turn mostly to so-called post-industrial societies; places saturated with capitalist economics and ideologies. We want to pay special attention to the relationships between youth cultures and capitalism. In this vein, we’ll try to pry open the idea of “learning capitalist culture.” We will explore some of the following themes of youth: subculture, music, deviance/dissent, gender, ethnicity, and race.
BOOKS AND
Course grading: midterm exam 20%; final exam: 40%; research paper:
20%. homework, quizzes, and participation (combined): 20% (ratio of 6 percent
for attendance, 6 percent for oral contributions and positive, respectful
impact on class, 7 percent for unannounced quizzes.)
Written quizzes are possible on any
day of class. They will be based on the current reading only, not on previous reading. This course requires a lot of reading. If you
are unable to read a lot for this class, you should consider dropping the
course. If you miss a quiz, there will not be a make-up. No make-ups,
that is, except for emergencies and religious holidays (as approved by
diversity officer on campus).
Participation includes attendance, preparation, arriving on time,
not leaving early, and being a positive and respectful member of the class.
Oral participation is vital.
Consider
emailing me links to YouTube videos, songs, or pictures which you think are
relevant and illuminating to the week’s reading.
Get
in there on the CCNET bulletin board: ask questions, answer, politely debate,
help one another, offer illustrations.
Expectations, Policies, and Common Courtesy
Attendance: Students are expected to
attend all classes.
Punctuality: You are expected to arrive and be settled in your seat by
the beginning of class and to remain until the end of class, or your
participation mark will suffer. Unless you become ill, do not begin packing up
books or stand to leave before the end of class, because this is distracting to
all. If you know you cannot stay for the entire period, please sit near the
door and leave very quietly.
Courtesy in Class: Every student is expected to pay close attention in
the lecture or film. Refrain from talking during lectures and films, except to
ask or respond to a question from the instructor. Even quiet talking is
distracting and disrespectful for your fellow students and your instructor.
Turn off pagers and mobile phones. In class, your undivided attention and
courtesy is also expected; however, this is your opportunity to discuss what
you are learning in class with your professor and one another. You are
encouraged to thoughtfully ask and answer questions, but please, no
confidential, whispered conversations. Anything you say should be directed to
the class as a whole.
Email Communication: Emailing with your professor is a form of professional
communication. Please write courteously and clearly; do not use text-messaging
abbreviations or slang. Please clearly indicate your questions or concerns. Be
sure to provide a summary of the email topic in the Subject line (do not just
write “Hi” or leave the Subject blank, or your email may be rejected as junk
mail by the UT server). You should ALWAYS use your UT email address if at all
possible – the UT server regularly rejects hotmail accounts as potential spam.
Your message should be very brief, polite, and to the point. (For example:
subject; [ANT322] Question about Sept 12th lecture.
Dear Professor Clark, I am having trouble with your claim that
It’s usually not worth explaining your missing presence, your missing papers,
etc. Generally speaking, something came up and you missed class. It is your
responsibility to get notes from another student. Back up your computer files,
start projects long before they are due, and study hard. You will not be
excused from your work: just get the job done. In severe situations (death in
the family, disabling illness, etc.) provide written proof. I’ll
do my best to help students in crisis.
If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me
a letter from the proper UTM authorities in a timely manner so that your needs
may be addressed. UTM has procedures to determine accommodations based on
documented disabilities. If you have religious scheduling concerns, please
report these in the first or second week of class. I will do my utmost to
respect disabilities and religious issues if they should arise.
MID-TERMS and FINAL EXAMINATIONS
Both the mid-term and final exams will consist of multiple choice,
fill-in-the-blank, and short answer questions on ALL materials presented in the
class (readings, lectures, AND films). The final exam will be cumulative.
*MISSED EXAMS*
Avoid missing an exam - the procedure for taking a make-up exam is strictly
regulated by the university, and these policies will be followed in all cases.
Please notify the instructor by email or phone as soon as possible if you miss
an exam.
* For the Mid-term Exam, see Section 7.9 “Term Tests” in the UTM Calendar for
2006-2007. A valid doctor's excuse or similar university-approved excuse will
be required to take the make-up for the mid-term. ONE makeup will be given for
the mid-term, the week after the regular exam. All makeup exams will be short
answer format only, not multiple choice.
* For the Final Exam, see Section 7.14 “Examinations” in the UTM Calendar for
2006-2007. You will have to submit a petition to Registrarial Services, among
other requirements, and re-take the exam during the Deferred Examinations
Period (possibly Feb. 2007 during Reading Week, or as otherwise scheduled by
the university). All makeup exams will be short answer format only, not
multiple choice.
****LATE EXERCISES: (1) Late exercises may be penalized per calendar day,
including weekends. It is your responsibility to turn in late assignments to
the teaching assistant in her office, at her convenience. Do not submit your
assignment to the secretary nor to anyone else in the Department of
Anthropology. Do not slide your assignment under the instructor's office door.
The assignment has not been officially submitted until you sign the submission
form. You are also advised to make a copy of your assignments before submitting
them.
Cheating is strongly discouraged.
PLAGERISM on exams and
written work: You may get lecture from other students for days when you are
absent, but the answers you submit must be your own independent work. Exercises
in which duplication is detected will be severely penalized. For more details,
see Academic Honesty; and the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters in the UTM
Calendar for 2005-2006 under Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters. It is your
responsibility to be familiar with this code, and adhere to it.
We will use TurnItIn.com to
protect against cheating. You must submit your papers electronically. (If you
have a strong opposition to TurnItIn.com, please see the prof. We can have you
submit drafts of your paper 3 weeks early and manually check them against a
database.) Normally, students will be required to submit their course essays to
Turnitin.com for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible
plagiarism. In doing so, students will allow their essays to be included as
source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, where they will be
used solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to
the University's use of the Turnitin.com service are described on the
Turnitin.com web site.
A
final warning to cheaters, plagiarizers, and other rapscallions:
• 98% of students are honest. Those who are not degrade the university itself
and do not belong in college.
• Ignorance of university policy is no excuse. See university policies if you
have any questions.
• If you submit a paper you yourself do not understand, you flunk the course.
You may be required to explain your paper in a private oral examination. If you
do not understand your "own" sentences, or the content of your
"own" paper, this will be taken as evidence of plagiarism.
• Copying large sections from a book/article/lecture/friend, and then changing
some words, is plagiarism. If you include any information from lectures, books,
articles, or web pages, it must be explicitly cited, with exact references. If
you fail to do this, we will begin disciplinary proceedings.
"Accidents" are not acceptable: proofread your paper to make sure
that it is your own, and to make sure that you have given credit to your
sources.
• Those who are caught cheating on an exam or quiz will be submitted to
disciplinary proceedings.
• Now you know.
Notes on reading:
• Read both text and illustrations, except as noted.
• Do not fall behind. The reading is too challenging and too extensive to cram
before an exam. Moreover, participation in class is important to the success of
the course.
Course Calendar: (
January 7 Part of film: “Hype!” (VHS on 24 hr reserve at UTM library; watch it there or take it home)
January 14 DK: chapter 1: Marx and Engels “The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas” (or http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm); Gramsci (DK: cha 2); Horkheimer and Adorno “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” (DK cha 4 or http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm)
January 21 Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” (DK Chapter 6) or: (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm); Mary Bucholtz “Youth and Cultural Practice,” (online from UT Library system http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/41032).
January 28 Dick Hebdige
(DK, cha. 12: 144-63); Hebdige “Meaning of Mod” (SD, 166-74). John Clarke (SD:
174-8); Stuart Hall, "Encoding/Decoding” (DK 163-73).
February 4 Malcolm Cowley (SD, pp 312-6); Thomas Frank (SD: 316-27). Dylan Clark: “The Death and Life of Punk, The Last Subculture” (CCNET handout); Guy Debord, “The Commodity as Spectacle” (DK, cha. 9); Naomi Klein “Patriarchy Gets Funky: The Triumph of Identity Marketing,” http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/klein.htm
February 11 Simon Reynolds “Generation Ecstasy” (SD: 118-31); Bertolt Brecht “Emphasis on Sport” (SD: 183-5); Stuart Hall “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular” (SD: 185-92); Mikhail Bakhtin (SD: 82-9)
Reading Week
February 25 Midterm examination
March 3 James Scott from Weapons of the Weak (SD 89-96); Robin D. G. Kelley from Race Rebels (SD 96-9); Paul Gilroy, “Between Afro-centrism and Euro-centrism: youth culture and the problem of hybridity.” (UT library system or http://logic.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/~b114299/young/1993-2/y932gilr.htm)
March
10 bell hooks “Eating the Other: Desire
and Resistance,” (DK, cha 24); Cosgrove “The Zoot Suit and Style Warfare” (SD
157-66 is best or, as a lesser alternative: http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/whole_cloth/u7sf/u7materials/cosgrove.html
); Lipsitz “Immigration and Assimilation: Rai, Reggae, and Bhangramuffin” (SD:
231-9); Ken Miichi, “Islamic Youth Movements in Indonesia,” (1 page) http://www.iias.nl/nl/32/IIAS_NL32_22.pdf
(or UToronto
Library system http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/42803). Altbach “Student Power: Politics and
Revolution” (2 pages) (UToronto library system: http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/42804).
Be sure to watch the
video soon. It’s in the library. Or you
can watch it piece by piece on YouTube.com (search for “riot grrrl retrospective”. I think it has at least 11 parts).
March 17 Arun Saldanha “Music, Space, Identity:
Geographies of Youth Culture in
March 24 DVD: “Don’t Need You” (about 45 minutes; in library: you need to watch on your own time in the weeks before class!), Riot Grrrl (SD: 178-80); Kathleen Hanna (SD: 180-3); Gottlieb and Wald, “Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrls, Revolution and Women in Independent Rock,” (preferred: http://www.arts.unco.edu/music/musichist/mus308/riotgrrrlsarticle.html) or on UT Library system. Dylan Clark: “Strategic Reification: The Devolution of Dissent” (CCNET handout)
March 31 Radicalesbians “The Woman-Identified Woman,” (SD: 248-54); Richard Dyer “Stereotyping” (DK, cha 23, 353-65). Angela McRobbie “Top Girls: Young Women and the Post-Feminist Sexual Contract” (UT library system http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/41031 )
April 7 David Graeber, “The New Anarchists.” http://newleftreview.org/?view=2368; Hakim Bey, “TAZ” (SD: 113-8), John Jordan “The Art of Necessity” (SD: 347-57), Jason Grote “The God That People Who do Not Believe in God Believe in,” AND/OR you may watch Rev. Billy videos, such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wxjl2ERhnI Andrew Boyd, “Truth is a Virus” (SD 369-78).
April 8 PAPERS
DUE.
April 16 (Wed., Apr. 16th) 4 pm to 7 pm (3 hrs) SE Gym. FINAL EXAM. Written and comprehensive. All class readings and lectures and videos required for final; material will somewhat more emphasize the second half of the course.
On reserve at UTM Library: VHS: “Hype”. DVD: “Dogtown and ZBoys.”
“Don’t Need You: The Herstory of Riot Grrrl.” ; possible DVD (on order) : “The Ad and the ego;”
OPTIONAL: “Living Room” DVD on anarchist
infoshops in the
OPTIONAL VIDEO, strongly recommended and very helpful: Stuart Hall: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-8471383580282907865 With two Hall readings, a Hebdige article which leans on Hall’s work, a Gilroy article (Hall’s student), and lecture material repeatedly based on Stuart Hall’s work, this video can help you to fortify your comprehension of Hall’s work.