Content:

In this class we will engage a selected variety of theoretical concepts that can help us understand the processes in which American popular culture crosses cultural borders and boundaries. Recent work on globalization, cultural history, cultural studies, and cultural theory at large can further our understanding of the journey of U.S. American cultural production to its appropriations in Austria—of how the blues and Bob Dylan crossed the Atlantic to be taken up and reworked in “Austropop”; how TV shows like CSI Miami have become so popular that there has been an interactive exhibition in Austria called “CSI Vienna”; how the road movie genre found itself reworked in Austrian films such as Indien in the 1990s; or how CocaCola, McDonald’s, and Starbucks have become ambivalent symbols of “America” in everyday life in contemporary Austria. This class is part of a larger project called “American / Cultural Studies as a Transnational Project” (see http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/TransatlanticDialogues), which I am conducting with Dr. Astrid Fellner (currently Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair at Stanford University) and Dr. Tim Conley (Bradley University, Peoria, IL). Students in this class will have the opportunity to engage in collaborative work with students from Bradley University via a shared e-learning platform and through live interaction and collaboration (for details, see below) and with students at Stanford University via shared e-learning.

Assessment:

Class participation, including readings and class discussions, presentations, and regular written assignments; participation in a two-week student exchange with Bradley University students in which students attend classes offered by BU faculty in Vienna, collaborative work on a blog/website with BU students, and a term paper.

Aims:

On the one hand, this course aims to increase and deepen students’ prior knowledge of significant concepts in contemporary cultural theories, esp. regarding popular and mass culture. On the other, this class will enable students to use concepts in critically reflected ways to engage effectively in contemporary cultural discourses and debates, especially with regard to “Americanization” and anti-Americanisms (as dimensions of or in relation to globalization), the “clash of civilizations” and cultures, cultural transfer and cultural change.

Method:

Small-group and all-class discussions of texts from the reader, group presentations and collaborative work with students from Bradley University and Stanford University. In the first part of this class, students will share readings with BU students on the history and different cultures of Vienna. The second part of this class consists of formal and informal meetings with BU students and their professors (May 22 to June 3). Based on their preparatory theoretical work and their practical investigations with Bradley and Stanford students, Vienna students will then investigate selected topics in more detail and work on their term papers in the 3rd part of this course.

Reading:

A course reader will be available at CopyStudio Schwarzspanierstraße.