Overview of Course

This course provides an overview of 20th Century Pop Culture as expressed in Radio, Film, and Television, as well as how cultural traditions are revealed or distorted in popular live performance. By watching and discussing major films, oft-referred-to television programs, and by listening to popular radio programs, students will learn many of the references that professionals working in theatre and film repeatedly use to evoke a look, feeling, or era. In addition to the Western Pop Culture that has recently saturated the world, we will take closer look at the common vocabulary of citizens in some of the ports we visit, and examine how Pop Culture creates, reflects, and sometimes mischaracterizes peoples and cultures.