Literature, Popular Culture and the Visual Arts

C LIT 228 B-1 | Winter 2020

For syllabus and reading list, please contact tokabe@ualberta.ca

[students] Please see eClass for an updated class schedule and guidelines on how to submit your assignments due to COVID-19.

Instagram: @Pop.culture228

Why study pop culture? We should study pop culture because of its influential role in the construction of our identities and our sense of place within the world. It is a window to an understanding of our past and its relationship to the present and foreseeable future. This course is designed to introduce cultural theories and texts that will encourage you to consider the relationship between history, culture and politics by examining a selection of genres (i.e., detective fiction, romance, horror science fiction) in the past and present through a comparative lens. With a focus on adaptations of popular “literary” texts from the West and from Japan, this course thematically explores how our ideas about class, gender, identity, nation and race are embedded in various mass cultural products, including but not limited to anime, comics, films, literature, manga, and social media. In other words, we will explore how these cultural “texts” reflect and respond to wider sociopolitical issues that are defined and re-defined at different historical intervals. As part of this course, students are encouraged to venture to the Marvel: Universe of Super-Heroes, a special exhibition held at the Telus World of Science before February 17th 2020. Students can also look forward to guest speakers such as The Wisteria Lodgers: Edmonton’s Sherlockian Society, and curate a pop culture exhibition at the end of the course.

Anonymous Student Testimonials (Selected)

Administered by the University of Alberta Universal Student Rating of Instruction (USRI):

Comments on online delivery of lecture using Zoom (As of March 16, 2020)

“Thank you for keeping the class and class schedule so well organized throughout the semester. I was worried everything was going to become hard to follow, but Dr. Okabe was the only professor I had that laid out an organized schedule with detailed instructions to follow. It was well appreciated. I liked the interactive element of the IG questionnaire following the presentations and the online exhibit went very smoothly!”

“I liked how excited Mimi was about everything and how she carried on as if nothing had changed, her attitude helped with the adjustment from in-person to online. I really had no complaints about the Zoom sessions.”

Comments on in-class delivery of lecture (From January 6 - March 16, 2020)

“I enjoyed Prof. Okabe's lecturing style. She seemed very knowledgeable about the subjects and like she had practiced the presentations well, and she got the students to interact with each other regularly. Honestly I don't know if I'd change a thing.”

”I really liked how class time was organized. We had lots of time for discussions which was really nice. Class sessions were also very respectful and allowed for everyone to share and contribute their ideas.”