The Achilles Effect explores gender bias in the entertainment aimed at primary school boys, focusing on the dominant themes in children’s TV shows, toy advertising, movies, and books: gender stereotypes of both sexes, male dominance, negative portrayals of fathers, breaking of the mother/son bond, and the devaluing of femininity. It examines the gender messages sent by pop culture, provides strategies for countering these messages, and encourages discussion of a vitally important issue that is rarely talked about—the impact of gender stereotypes on boys.
large site, attractive new design as of 11/06. essays, links, delving into popular culture and playing with it, theoretical explorations and savvy; highly recommended
This is main web page for Computers In Society course (CIS) at the University of York. This page provides links to material for the topics in the course.
longstanding and well maintained site by Internet humanities pioneer, George P. Landow. Organized by country and by conceptual approaches. Courses linked to. Useful internal search engine.
very evocative discussion guides for students doing exercises in and thinking about a wide variety of physical and cultural spaces; writers can gets lots of ideas from this course and its notes
"interprets and critiques movies and television, news and political rhetoric, theme parks and advertising, computer games and the Internet, and other creations of contemporary culture"
Focusing on the resilience of distinctive local consumption cultures, with evidence from three contrasting consumption cultures: consumption and 'public culture' in India, 'consumer nationalism' in China, and 'artful consumption' in Russia.
large collection of academic essays; "such diverse topics as art, architecture, race, Internet studies, sexuality, drama, design, multimedia, and current social issues. Also hypertext and streaming audio and video recordings."
large site, attractive new design as of 11/06. essays, links, delving into popular culture and playing with it, theoretical explorations and savvy; highly recommended
Braidotti is a theorist combining the insights of Donna Haraway with postcolonial theory; this earlier (1998) essay still has relevance today. Useful in teaching.
"multiple contours of daily life in an unevenly digital era... how technology shapes, transforms, reconfigures, and/or impedes social relations...including issues of globalization, mobility, power, and access"
a multilingual web journal that challenges received ideas about linguistic and cultural "translation" along principles of a critique of culturalisation; social recomposition, beyond postcolonialism: a global commons; multilinguality vs. national language
Henry Jenkins, with Katie Clinton, Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robinson, and Margaret Weigel ; PDF or online in 6 parts; sensible and sparks new directions of thought; respectful of students
very large bibliography on Critical Whiteness Studies, broken down into various categories; not interactive and does not lead to full text essays; worth going to the library to follow up on
an important essay building on the work of Donna Haraway, emphasizing the kinds of empoverishment that come with globalization, and the possibilities for new forms of collective identity in cyberspace, while eschewing utopianism.
"a widespread belief that there is something special about certain cultural products and events (be they in the arts, theatre, music, cinema, architecture or more broadly in localized ways of life, heritage, collective memories and affective communities).
...to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an "objective" news story, "value-free" social science, or a "free" economy. A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society; the idea becomes a
...to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an "objective" news story, "value-free" social science, or a "free" economy. A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society; the idea becomes a
studies in contemporary culture, upcoming issues include Blogging; Threatening Bodies: Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race; Eco-Cultures: Culture Studies and the Environment; Frontier and Film: Cultural Icons of American Cinema; Class, Culture and Public Int
"writings cutting across and between politics, media, literature, history, law, science, medicine, philosophy, economics, music, film and more." Attractive and informative graphic design for ejournal homepage.
Oct 06. Innovative academic TV site, Flow, has upcoming conversational conference coming at end of month. Contributors submit short position papers, available for downloading.
theses for a proposed book on this topic, to which readers are invited to contribute, with comments included in "symposia" after each chapter, first announcement. Later entries include chapter contributors, topics, comments.
"Our increasing emphasis on quantitative reductions, like ranking lists, at the expense of critically engaged qualitative thought, can be seen as bottom-line strategies for efficiently navigating our increasingly .. networked cybernetic order."
e-journal: "process of re-imagining democracy, broadly conceived as referring to the multitude of practices that shape everyday life"; in-depth left essays from an international perspective