RE: Thoughts on a Syllabus?

Hi Ron,

My first suggestion would be to include some material about the Tartu School 
headed by Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspenski. They were the first in Soviet Russian 
in the sixties to come up with semiotic models of everyday practices. Much of 
their work has been translated into English, although at times translation is 
quite bad. Some of the interesting titles are:

Semiotics of cinema / Jurij Lotman ; translated from Russian, with foreword by 
Mark E. Suino
The Semiotics of Russian culture / Ju. M. Lotman, B.A. Uspenskij ; edited by 
Ann Shukman (This book has interesting essay about Card games, Russian 
profanitiesr) 
Universe of the mind : a semiotic theory of culture / Yuri Lotman ; translated 
by Ann Shukman ; introduction by Umberto Eco
Principles of structural typology / by B. Uspensky. The Hague, Mouton, 1968 80p 
Tr. of Printsipy struckturnoi tipologii 
THE SEMIOTICS OF THE RUSSIAN ICON/ by B. Uspensky Published Lisse : The Peter 
de Ridder Press, 1976

Cheers

Subhash

                -----Original Message-----
                From:   Ron Greene [mailto:green179@xxxxxxx]
                Sent:   Thursday, 31 October 2002 10:03 
                To:     CULTSTUD-L: A listserv devoted to Cultural Studies
                Subject:        [cultstud-l] Thoughts on a Syllabus?

                Dear Friends.

                I am in the process of outlining a syllabus that approaches the
                study/history/teaching of cultural studies though its 
relationship to
                communication models and or theories/philsophies of 
communication. The goal
                is to teach graduate students in communication studies, as well 
as some from
                outside the discipline, who nonetheless have an interest in 
cultural studies
                and might be looking for a way to map the relationship between 
CS and Comm.
                I am probably going to end the class with the current attempts 
and emerging
                debate over whether or not Cultural Studies can or should 
abandon
                communication models/textuality etc.  So  the very very rough 
outline of
                such a project on my desk looks something like this (my 
categories are very
                problematic, but bear with me) this is also terribly British-US 
centric for
                now, but I hope to be changing that

                A. The ghost of F. R. Levis in Cultural Materialism

                textualist/Literary models of reading; bottom up history; 
Williams,
                Communication and Structures of Feeling

                B. Chicago School Symbolic Interactionism/Dewey

                think here of someone like James Carey

                C. Semiotic-Structuralist (toward Encoding/decoding)

                Barthes-Althusser hybrid from BCCS (thinking about the News 
photograph work,
                some of the McRobbie's work on girls popular magazines, some of 
the
                subcultrual stuff, Hebdige's Style (more Barthes) etc)

                Debate with Screen Style High Textualism (Coward's critique of 
BCCS work and
                the responses by Hall et, al.)

                Encodiing/Decoding as an event in the invention of a 
communication
                theory/model for Cultural Studies


                This is actually to get me started, After here the list seems 
to be, well, a
                list of possibilities or perspectives, Hegemony and Audiences; 
Foucauldian
                Discourse analysis; speechact/post-structuralist/perforamtive 
etc.,

                At this point, even if I can get away with the story from A to 
C with some
                sort of historical sensitivity, after encoding/decoding the 
relationship to
                communication, seems more driven by different theoretical forms 
of uptake to
                study "objects" or to do so with an implied model of 
communication. Until
                perhaps Grossberg's claim starting in roughly 93 that cultural 
Studies might
                not be happy anymore in communication studies departments 
and/or that CS has
                embraced a communication model of culture, which he, believes 
to be
                problematic. (While my history is likely off, the time between
                encoding/Decoding 1980 and Grossberg's 93 critique is a very 
rich period of
                different philosophical-critical approaches finding some room 
to exist (I
                suspect "The post's" might be one way to describe that period)

                So I was wondering, if anyone else has thought about this 
peculiar
                relationship between Cultural Studies and Communication
                Theor(ies)/Philosophies.  Do folks have other ways of 
approaching the
                Cultural Studies/Communication Hybrid (I.e. do you go through 
object domains
                instead; do you focus on different points on the communication 
circuit, some
                other model of communication (for example, CS and producers of 
texts, CS and
                the audiences of texts, CS and the message of texts....etc). 
This is
                something I want to say is an historical moment, a peculiar 
conjuncture with
                a history, and not necessary the future or even present of 
cultural studies.
                But that is the question I am thinking about as I write this 
syllabus, what
                might your question be?

                In the end I would take any advise or suggestions folks have. I 
would also
                be interested in trying to see if we cannot make such a 
syllabus on the
                list.  Basically, my thought is that there is "no necessary 
corresponence"
                between the history of Cultural Studies and Communication 
theory/philosophy.
                Yet, it happened and I am wondering if folks would like to help 
me document
                that encounter with suggestions, their own thoughts and ideas 
about what
                would be on such a reading list--with a reason or two why this 
reading and
                not some other reading.

                Ok, that's what I am working on, anyone want to help out?

                cheers
                ron greene


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