Overview
This course explores popular culture from feminist and anti-racist perspectives, with attention to sexuality, gender, race and nation in a variety of media. In this class, we will examine and unpack how race, gender, sexuality, and class are constructed and re-constructed in mass media and popular culture. Specifically, we will look into how popular culture elements are framed through the processes of production, consumption, representation, and reception. The course is not an appreciation of popular culture; rather, it is aimed to develop a critical understanding of media productions and cultural texts that are produced through social, political, cultural and historical contexts. In this class, through intersectional analysis, students will engage critically with the most contemporary examples of popular culture.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, student will be able to:
- Identify and apply relevant key concepts and theories from gender and feminist studies, anti-racist and decolonization studies, and media studies;
- Apply media literacy skills to make connections between everyday events, popular culture, politics, and social justice issues as global citizens;
- Engage in unlearning around the construction, representation and entrenchment of gender, race, sexuality, class, (dis)ability, ethnicity and nationhood in popular culture and develop and apply a feminist, critical, and intersectional lens to analyze;
- Critically reflect on power, privilege, and oppression and how they are implicated and operate in popular culture and the new media, including evaluating one’s own positionality;
- Utilize an intersectional approach to analyze how the racialization processes and other experiences of various social groups are revealed, subverted, and/or challenged through popular culture;
- Actively and creatively respond to popular culture, exploring resistance as well as consumption or consumptive relationships with received knowledge(s) about gender, race, and social justice.
- Apply academic research and writing skills as well as ethical citation practices for the field of Gender Studies.
Terms
Evaluation
15% - Scavenger Hunt Quizzes (x3)
25% - Fandom Discussion
30% - Creative Project
30% - Final Paper
*Evaluation Subject to Change*
Live Sessions
This course has optional live sessions. Please consult the Timeline in the first week of class for dates/times.
Groupwork
This course involves optional teamwork, which strengthens sought-after transferable skills, including communication, relationship building, adaptability, conflict resolution, and more. Queen’s University and the teaching team are committed to supporting students with strategies to succeed in a team-based setting. 
Textbook and Materials
ASO reserves the right to make changes to the required material list as received by the instructor before the course starts. Please refer to the Campus Bookstore website at to obtain the most up-to-date list of required materials for this course before purchasing them.
Required Textbooks
- There is no textbook for the course. All the course material will be available online.
Time Commitment
To complete the readings, assignments, and course activities, students can expect to spend, on average, about 10 - 12 hours per week (120 hours per term) on the course.