Popular Literature Culture

AY2024/2025 Semester 2

This module introduces the theoretical question of the relationship between `literature and high culture' to the (less-literary) study of `popular culture'. The module examines the following key terms and sets of oppositions: (i) high culture vs. low culture; (ii) pop culture vs. popular (or mass) culture (the 2 terms are not the same); (iii) popular culture as resistance vs. `pop'/`mass' culture as consumption; and (iv) class and popular culture. We begin by examining the debates about the value of cultural texts that are not of high cultural origins, and could be treated as commodities within capitalist societies. Questions such as the following will arise: 1. What is the impact and significance of commercially produced cultural products? 2. How do sub- and counter-cultural practices attempt to form `alternative? values systems? 3. What happens when alternative cultural formations become transformed into the mainstream? You will be expected to engage with the debate that the course will unveil and attempt to apply concepts learnt critically.