thefearwasreal: (act: checklist)
thefearwasreal ([personal profile] thefearwasreal) wrote in [community profile] fandomhigh2013-01-18 02:53 am
Entry tags:

Pop Culture: Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learnt From... [Thurs, 1st Period]

Unlike last week, there were actual pots of coffee and cups set out for the students, Oz liked to keep people on their toes like that.

"Morning, all. first thing, the lovely Miss Thorne is my new minion." Oz didn't even try to pretend he meant assistant. "It's her responsibility to get the coffee and donuts from now on." There were no donuts this morning. Your toes, people, stay on them.

"Second thing, assignments. Rather focus on pop-quizzes," which meant that Oz was totally going to spring an end-of-semester test on them at the last moment, "You're all going to do a two-part assignment over the course of this semester. The first part of which is due at the start of class the week preceding Spring Break, and the second I'll get to later in the semester."

"This first half will consist of a handwaved thousand word essay on an academic article on an aspect of pop culture that holds personal interest and engagement for you. I expect you to cover four areas in this essay. One, what is the area being discussed. This is where you give a brief overview of the topic, and talk about why you like it, how long you've likes it, all that jazz. Two, what is the article saying about it. Is it positive or negative? What are the main arguments the is writer putting forth . Three, identify the theoretical perspective the author has taken, and I'll explain what I mean by that later in the class. Finally, tell me how the article has changed your opinion on the subject. Self explanatory that one. You must also correctly reference your work. Because plagiarism is bad," said the mostly former art forger. "And trust me, you'll thank me when you're in college and they just expect you to know how to do that." Those of the class not planning on going to college could commence glaring daggers now.

"Now I mentioned theoretical perspectives, pretty much most articles will come from a specific one. Basically it's a framework used to build arguments around, usually based upon previous work in the field. They assume that certain facts and ways about how the world works hold true. Most of the time they'll just tell you whose work they're drawing from to support or base their argument around, but sometimes you gotta dig a little deeper."

"Which means it's not time to learn some of the identifying features are of the more common theoretical perspectives used when discussing popular culture." Which meant handouts, thick ones.

"First we have the commies, Marxism and the Frankfurt School. Now good old Karl Marx was very big on anti-capitalism, urbanisation and industrialisation fragmenting society, power resting in the hands of the bourgeoise, vaudeville comedy with his brothers, and the idea that mass culture was born and perpetuated through capitalism. The Frankfurt School was guys like Adorno, Horkeimer, and Mercuse, believed a lot of the same things as Karl, just expanded on them a bit differently, big fans of the passive audience theory, that you're all gonna believe everything you see and hear without question and that's how the man controls you."

"Next, we have hegemony which was Gramsci's baby. More communism, but rather than the man crushing you directly, you help him crush you because he's got you all convinced it's common sense that he's in charge, it's the natural order of things, which leads to counter-hegemony where you take back the states apparatus and make it different. Important stuff to know if you want to change the world."

"Then we have feminism, which is kinda a big and complicated mess which is going to get a whole class to itself later, but you usually end up with one of three viewpoints, radical feminism, which is pretty hardcore and based largely around second-wave feminism, basically everything can be blamed on the patriarchy, third-wave feminism, which takes a bit more nuanced view of things, and post-feminism, which is all yay feminism won, now stop whining about it."

"Finally there's postmodernism, which is all about how reality is false and the mirror is real, style over substance, and space and time is all oogy." Oz waved his hands in the air. "It's all kind of vague. Blame, Derrida, and Barthes."

"Now for some class discussion, kids, which of these theories do you think has the most applicability to your everyday lives?"

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] reven8e.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 04:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Emily Thorne

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] harpy-daughter.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Surreal
ultron_junior: ([neg] little bit bitter)

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] ultron_junior 2013-01-17 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Victor Mancha
notalender: (eyeroll)

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] notalender 2013-01-17 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Arietty Clock
dressedinblood: (Anna finds this unpossible)

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] dressedinblood 2013-01-17 05:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Anna Korlov
genesishero: (A bit uncomfortable)

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] genesishero 2013-01-17 07:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Evan Sabahnur

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] nomelancholy.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 07:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Ulrik of Denmark
abitlowkey: (eager like a puppy)

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] abitlowkey 2013-01-17 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Loki Laufeyson
notagoose: (Default)

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] notagoose 2013-01-17 10:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Shane Gooseman
pursuedthestars: ([wtf] whelp)

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] pursuedthestars 2013-01-18 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
Jim Kirk

Re: Sign In - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] 3girls-1core.livejournal.com 2013-01-19 02:12 am (UTC)(link)
Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar

Re: Listen to Oz - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] reven8e.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 04:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Well she'd be dammed.

This was sounding pretty interesting!

Re: Listen to Oz - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] harpy-daughter.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 05:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Essay? Academic article? Theoretical perspective?

Hell if Surreal knew what any of that meant, or any of the rest of it, so she was just going to look at Oz blankly.
notalender: (tiny)

Re: Listen to Oz - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] notalender 2013-01-17 05:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Arietty could build herself a house with the handouts.

She was a little distracted during the lecture itself, trying to work out how the heck she was going to get them back to her dorm room on the back of a rat. Eggletina didn't look too enthused with the idea, either.
pursuedthestars: ([neu] look at me)

Re: Listen to Oz - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] pursuedthestars 2013-01-18 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
This...was a lot of work. Jim rubbed his brow. He could do it, sure, and he could do it well but it was the fact that he was pretty damn lazy on the best of days.

But, it sounded like it'd hold his attention so he'd give it a go even if it pained him to do.

Re: Class Discussion - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] reven8e.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"I find the hegemony to be a pretty interesting idea."

Because convincing people to destroy themselves was going to do wonders for her in the long run.

Re: Class Discussion - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] harpy-daughter.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
"I have no idea what language that was in, but it wasn't Common," Surreal said bluntly. "Firstly, we do not have 'college' where I am from, whatever that is."

No, no one has explained higher education to Surreal yet. Sorry, Oz.

"None of your words hold any meaning or 'applicability' for me."

Re: Class Discussion - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] harpy-daughter.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 05:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Surreal just gave him a Look.

"I think where I go to learn things after leaving this place, and what you are referring to, are very different things," she deadpanned.

Because she very very much doubted that most of the students here went to some sort of brothel as a next-step in education. Just a hunch.

Re: Class Discussion - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] harpy-daughter.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
"It's an apprenticeship rather than attending a school," Surreal said, "-but yes."
ultron_junior: ([neu] contemplating)

Re: Class Discussion - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] ultron_junior 2013-01-17 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"Um." Victor fiddled with his pen. He knew what all of the words Oz had used meant more or less, but he wasn't prone to academic analysis of why he obsessed over Misplaced and certain video games. "I guess postmodernism makes sense to me? With the space and time being ... oogy."
notalender: (Thoughtful)

Re: Class Discussion - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] notalender 2013-01-17 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
"I like feminism," Arietty decided, mostly because she was taking a class on it, and thus felt like she actually had any idea what it meant. "Though I'm not sure you did a very good job of explaining it."

Re: Class Discussion - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] nomelancholy.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 07:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, Ulrik couldn't quite contain the amused smirk that Oz's discussion of postmodernism prompted. If there was any one word to describe his reality... that would be it.

"Considering how much influence the future has over the present, which is also sort of the past from a certain point of view... I'd have to say it's a very postmodern sort of place."
pursuedthestars: ([neu] look faraway)

Re: Class Discussion - Pop Culture [02]

[personal profile] pursuedthestars 2013-01-18 12:26 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm pretty down with postmodernism, I guess," Jim said. "What people tend to see isn't always gonna be real so why believe it? There's no one way or the highway and the more and more people that populate Earth and other planets are just gonna make time and space messier. How I view things ain't gonna be the same as some alien back home views things. His truth's different than mine so there's chaos."

Re: Talk to Oz or the TA - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] reven8e.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Emily was there!

No donuts today! Damn you Oz. Damn you.

She might have been staring at him like she wanted to ask him stuff though. Maybe. But she was there for the students though. Maybe they had favorite donuts flavors or something.

Re: Talk to Oz or the TA - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] reven8e.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
She could get behind that logic. The first part, that is.

"I get the whole idea of making a preamble to the actual pop culture via exploration of the, ah, foundations of societal models and what not." Somehow Emily felt a bit silly saying that.

"But I think most students here were expecting something a bit more..." Like Jaye's class, yeah.

Re: Talk to Oz or the TA - Pop Culture [02]

[identity profile] reven8e.livejournal.com 2013-01-17 05:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Emily wasn't into evil laughs. "Huh, alright. Because I do find this interesting. I'm not sure they all do though."