Do you love watching Jane the Virgin but wish you could more deeply analyze its gender, race, and class politics? Do you want to understand what the words “simulacra,” “superstructure,” and “spectatorship” mean?  Do you want to irritate your family with intricate explanations of television branding strategies or media ownership during Thanksgiving this year? Do you want to discuss taste, fandom, Hitchcock, rap music, The Lego Movie, and Nickelodeon? Then, this class is for you!

Over the course of the semester, we will work hone our argumentative, critical thinking, and analytical skills as applied to the media and culture we consume every day. This course does not offer a comprehensive history or overview of popular culture or an introduction to the basics of analyzing the media, rather, it offers more advanced tools and strategies through which to understand and analyze popular culture, media, and communication.  Specifically, this course is designed to deepen your understanding of basic theories and frameworks discussed in MACS 100 and MACS 101, particularly in critical and cultural theory. You should think of the course not as a basic survey of popular culture, but rather as an advanced lab in which to experiment with ways to apply critical and cultural theory to the pop culture you consume in your everyday life.