ENGL 130Reading Popular Texts

3 credits · English · Penn State

READING POPULAR TEXTS explores a variety of popular texts across various media with the goal of enabling students to sharpen their ability to interpret the social, political, and cultural significance of such texts in the contemporary world. Since these texts are primarily examples of popular culture-pervasive, selfreplicating, commercialized artifacts of the contemporary scene-they are familiar to the general student outside the classroom. Too often, however, students have not seen such texts subjected to the same kind of critical readings more elite cultural forms (e.g., canonized literature, art, and music). The purpose of the course is fulfilled if such students come away from it with a sharpened awareness of the role that pupular texts play in their daily lives and the means to discuss and explain their influence-in short, to read their culture more crirically.