Final Exam Study Guide Spring 2014 The Final Exam is designed to assess reading comprehension of the assigned readings and their connections to assigned film screenings this focuses on readings assigned after the midterm exam Question Types multiple choice multiple answer true false matching fill in the blank FIB o Majority of questions are multiple choice o FIB answers MUST be spelled correctly Use all lower case letters unless it s a proper noun Title Case is acceptable o For multiple choice and or multiple answer select the BEST answer choice s based on the information interpretations presented in the assigned readings i e web searches will likely be a waste of time Multicultural Film An Anthology Spring Summer 2014 Know the following key theories themes and concepts as they are discussed in the assigned readings chapters 1 30 In addition to the points listed below you should be familiar with be able to identify each author s central thesis or main argument Theories Theoretical Frameworks Methodology Cultural studies Kellner Hall Lull etc Women s Studies Kellner Grossman o The media are forms of pedagogy that teach us how to be mean and women how to conform to the dominant system of norms values practices and institutions 1 o multiperspectival approach that discusses production and political economy engages in textual analysis and studies the reception and use of cultural texts 4 o Film noir s lead female characters predominantly demonstrate complex psychological and social identity resisting the spectator s habit of seeing past her as opaque or ambiguous or of fixing on her as the thing a dangerous body to be labeled and tamed by social roles and institutions o Looks into film noir only focus on a few women who conform to the typical femme fatale role and ignore characters whose development is more complex o Femme fatales almost always involve a women trapped by the narrow categories of on offer for understanding female social and sexual lives Multiculturalism See Kellner Representation Hall Althusser etc o Althusser The ultimate condition of production is therefore the reproduction of the conditions of production The state is explicitly conceived as a repressive apparatus which enables the ruling class to ensure their domination over the working 1 o Lull o Lull o Loza class thus enabling the former to subject the latter to the process of surplus value extortion Ideology ideological framework Althusser Kellner Lull etc The mass media help create an impression that even society s roughest edges ultimately must conform to the conventional contours of dominant ideology Hegemony counterhegemony Kellner Lull Loza etc Because information and entertainment technology is so thoroughly integrated into the everyday realities of modern societies mass media s social influence is not always recognized discussed or criticized particularly in societies where the overall standard of living is relatively high Thus hegemony therefore can easily go undetected Counterhegemony Not soley in texts formulated in the process of communication Orientalism is a western style for dominating restructuring and having authority over the Orient It is a hegemonic system that consolidates and controls its object of study by classifying declassifying it within the linguistic symbolic order Themes Concepts Key Terms by author 1 Kellner Production Political Economy 2 Stuart Hall Representation i ii it is important to stress the importance of analyzing cultural texts within their system of production and distribution political economy 4 The system of production often determines what sort of artifacts will be produced what structural limits there will be as to what can and cannot be said and shown and what sort of audience effects the text may generate 4 i Representation connects meaning and language to culture ii Reflective 1 Does language simply reflect a meaning which already exists out there in the world of objects people and events iii Intentional iv Constructionist 1 Does language express only what the speaker or writer or painter wants to say his or her personally intended meaning 1 Is meaning constructed in and through language a Most significant impact on cultural studies b Semiotic approach c Discursive approach 2 How is meaning constructed and fixed i Two systems of representation i Mental representations 1 Meanings depend on the system of concepts and images formed in our thoughts which can stand for or represent the world enabling us to refer to things both inside and outside our heads ii Signs and languages 3 Lull Hegemony over others When does hegemony fail 4 Althusser Ideology i Hegemony is the power or dominance that one social group holds i When dominant ideology is weaker than social resistance i The category of the subject is only constitutive of all ideology insofar as all ideology has the function which defines it of constituting concrete individuals as subjects In order to exist every social formation must produce the conditions of its production at the same time as it produces and in order to be able to produce It must therefore reproduce ii 1 The productive forces 2 The existing relations of production ISAs RSAs i Ideological state apparatuses 1 A certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions a The religious ISA b The educational c The family d The legal e The political f The trade union g The communications h The cultural ISA a Government b Administration c Army d Police ii Repressive state apparatus 1 Belongs entirely to the public domain Functions by violence repression primarily and ideology secondarily as opposed to ISA by ideology slightly secondarily by repression 3 e Courts f Prisons g Etc Interpellation i All ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects by the functioning of the category of the subject 5 Anderson Definition of nation nationality i Nation it is an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign ii Nationality everyone should have a nationality like everyone has a gender Imagined limited sovereign community i Imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members ii Limited because even in the largest there are finite if elastic boundaries beyond which lie other nations iii Sovereign because the concept was born in an age which Enlightenment and revolution were destroying
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