Cultural Studies
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Minor Requirements — 18 Credits
Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that explores the relevance of “popular” or mass culture in shaping the beliefs, values, and practices that form social life. Cultural studies’ understanding of “cultural” includes objects and practices not normally associated with the definition of culture as high art or “taste.” Cultural studies is a method which interprets cultural productions (for example: film, fashion, food, popular music, architecture and cityscapes) as “texts” that make themselves available for interpretation and critical analysis. The minor will familiarize students with the critical traditions underlying the cultural studies approach and its roots in such disciplines and schools as anthropology and folklore, feminism and post-structuralism, the Frankfurt and Birmingham schools. Students will also learn to employ a critical interpretive vocabulary in analyses of cultural productions.
Degree Requirements
Take all of the following courses:
Choose nine credits from the following:
- Credits may be chosen from any category, with the advance approval of the minor’s advisor.
- The student will be expected to work closely with the minor advisor to choose a concentration area and sequence of courses tailored to her particular interests.
- Courses taken in the concentration area must bear at least two prefixes. Two of these courses must be taken at the 300-400 level.