FRS 002W — Sec. 001 — (2 units) — CRN 76192 — T 10:00 - 11:50 am — 25 Wellman
American Popular Culture

Instructor: Holly Ober, Department of Anthropology, College of Letters and Science

Description: In a heavily consumer-oriented society like the United States, people buy and use products to communicate or “perform” an identity to others, and also to themselves. In this course we will explore how the creative use of commodities and forms of artistic expression to fashion identities revolves around ideas about taste that includes many underlying assumptions about gender, sexuality, race, and class. What “power” do we give commodities to mediate personal and social identities in a society with an economy heavily dependent upon consumer behavior? We will learn some of the ways that people create and express a sense of self—consciously and unconsciously-- through consumerism, and how commodity consumption becomes involved in negotiating social relationships in ways that sometimes reinforce and sometimes subvert dominant norms or values. Students will participate in weekly discussion of readings or films, and prepare a presentation on some aspect of popular culture. The course has three main objectives: 1. To observe and interpret popular culture practices of personal interest to students, who may gain insight into their own lifestyles and choices. 2. To learn how ideas about what is “cool” or fashionable, at the level of daily practice, sometimes support and sometimes subvert hierarchical structures. 3. To learn how anthropologists study culture, and to apply anthropological thinking to American culture.

Format: The class will meet once a week for one hour for the first eight weeks, and for two hours the last two weeks of the quarter for student presentations. Some weeks rather than doing outside readings, we might meet for the scheduled two hours and watch a film instead.

Other time commitments: Outside of our regular class meetings, students are expected to spend at least three hours for the first eight weeks doing the required readings, any outside readings required for their projects, and gathering information for their final projects. Books for the course are:

Bike Lust: Harleys, Women and American Society, by Barbara Joans. University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.

Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community, by Margo DeMello. Duke University Press, 2000.
A few short articles available either online or in the reader, and possibly a film or two. Grading: 50% classroom participation and contribution to discussion. 50% in-class presentation.

About the Instructor: While working on my Ph.D. in cultural anthropology here at U.C. Davis, I took up motorcycling and discovered a whole new fascinating “tribe” whose traditions, stories, and practices fit perfectly with my larger interest in consumption, exchange, narrative, the (gendered) self, and ideology in American society. My main fieldwork has been on the conflict over public lands policies in Nevada, and the West more generally. I am currently a Lecturer in Anthropology.