Course Description

The category text is, of course, a sign with a history.  (When I was your age...) "Text" used to refer to a tidy and specific category of written discourse.  A text was a linguistic document of ideas and experiences that existed in written or printed form -  such creations as books, treatises, manuscripts, etc.   Later, visual languages (photos, film, art) were added to the category; then sounds (music, oral and aural texts), then places (landscapes, built environments).   Text takes various forms in and through various media.

We will begin with the broadest definition I can think of:  A text is anything that generates meaning.   The various approaches in this course will provide a series of theoretical lenses that focus on particular dynamics of how meanings are generated.  You will choose a text to work with all semester, and apply the approaches to examine:

• the dynamics of the text itself
• the interaction of text and reader/audience
• the reader/audience as a social construction
• the text as cultural production
• the text as cultural agent

Etymologically, the root of "text" is the same as that of "textile" and "texture" -- a Latin word meaning to weave. Recent and not-so-recent developments in the field of textual studies have encouraged a return to the etymological meaning of the metaphor, interpreting all discourse and action as part of a general process of weaving in which human beings create and re-create (or, more precisely, produce and reproduce) our identities, communities, institutions, ideologies, societies, cultures, and worlds.

In this course we will examine texts as symbolic expressions of identity, difference, experience, culture, community, and meaning, proceeding with the assumption that culture consists of an ongoing system of meanings, practices, and institutions in which personal and communal experience is articulated in diverse and dynamic forms.  These "articulations", so named by Stuart Hall, interact within ongoing, permeable symbolic systems that reflect, enable, and constrain cultural meanings, realities, and identities.

Course materials, assignments and discussions will converge on the underlying questions of how individuals and communities choose to present and represent themselves and their experience through symbols, how we construct and articulate our social identities, and ultimately how we embody, reflect and construct our culture through the texts we generate and attend to.
 

TEXTS:

Keith Negus & Michael Pickering, Creativity, Communication and Cultural Value. Sage, 2004.

Mikko Lehtonen, The Cultural Analysis of Texts.  Trans.  Aija-Leena Ahonen & Kris Clarke.  Sage, 2000.

Nicholas Mirzoeff, Watching Babylon: The War in Iraq and Global Visual Culture. Routledge, 2005.

Eric Louw, The Media & Cultural Production. Sage, 2001.

Paul Rabinow, ed.  The Foucault Reader.  NY: Pantheon Books, 1984.
     ** recommended site:  The Foucault Pages at CSUN, developed and maintained by Professor Ben Attias.

Online readings appear as links on the Course Schedule.
 

REQUIREMENTS:

GRADING SYSTEM:  Individual assignments are graded on a standard 10% curve.  The final course grade will be plus/minus, determined by course totals.     Breakdown:
94-100 = A     90-93 = A-     87-89 = B+     84-86 = B     80-83 = B-   etc.
 

COURSE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES:

A Note on Some of the Reading:  You may be reading textual theorists and critics who refer to a number of texts you may not have read.  Don’t get lost in these references - focus instead on

• the scope, claims and assumptions of the theory:
• what it focuses on and accounts for,
• what it ignores, who/what it privileges
• evaluate the heuristic value of the approach - what it reveals about your chosen text, and the process of making meaning.

Mechanical and Stylistic Competence:   Your papers should be error-free when you hand them in. For all written assignments, students are required to use either the American Psychological Association (APA) or the Modern Language Association (MLA) style manual for documenting references.  I also recommend you use UC Berkeley's very useful Style Sheets for Citing Resources (Print & Electronic). All written work should be typewritten or word processed and double-spaced, with standard fonts and margins, footers and page numbers.  Also give your papers a thematic title - something besides "dynamics of meaning paper" etc. Make me want to read what's inside!
 

Academic Honesty:   Students are responsible for understanding and adhering to university policies regarding academic honesty, as specified in the current CSUN Catalog and Schedule of Classes. Here is the department policy on ethical standards for graduate students:

Academic honesty is expected and required.  Academic dishonesty defrauds all those who depend on the integrity of University courses and is a serious offense covered by Section 41301, Title 5 of the California Code of Regulations. This section of the Code is published in the University Catalog, Schedule of Classes, and the Student Handbook. Academic dishonesty is grounds for dismissal from the graduate program and disciplinary action by the University.