Overview

English 245 will explore the ways in which each of us is both a user of and is used by popular culture. In this course we approach popular culture rhetorically—as a body of widely shared and contested beliefs, practices, and material objects that influence how we think, how we feel, how we vote, and how we live our lives in countless ways. Our readings will help us examine the role of popular culture in our lives, inform our general conversation, and provide us with a theoretical framework on which to develop our own ideas.

We will begin by considering the terms “rhetoric,” "culture" and "popular," and developing working definitions for the purpose of our class. As we turn to the second half of the semester, we will analyze how such critical factors as ethnicity, race, gender, class, age, region, and sexuality are shaped by and reshaped in popular culture. The end goal is to gain control of, rather than be controlled by, the texts of popular culture.