The seminar explores theoretical perspectives on popular culture, both from different historical periods and from different disciplinary perspectives. It makes students familiar with different, at times conflicting concepts of popular culture and introduces approaches to the analysis of popular cultural practices and forms of expression, also with the help of examples from different media and genres.

Course requirements:

• Regular attendance & active participation (e.g. reading assignments, in-class discussions)
• Paper on the basis of a presentation ("Referat und schriftliche Ausarbeitung", ca. 12-15 pp.) OR Hausarbeit (c. 15-20 pp.), due March 15th 2024.

A note on presentations:
For your presentation (in groups of no more than three people), please introduce the argument of the text(s) you are working with and prepare a discussion of exemplary parts (a chapter, a passage, a sequence,... ). Also, you are asked to identify an example with the help of which you are supposed to elucidate, but also critically assess the main argument of the theoretical text.
Apart from presenting the text and/in its contexts, you are also in charge of chairing a discussion about the text at stake – accordingly, you may want to prepare some guiding questions that
a) relate to the overall theme of the course;
b) ideally resonate with the example you chose and
c) frame the in-class activities (discussion, group work, ...).