Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cultural Studies and Interpretive Research
Introduction
This interdepartmental, intercollege option is designed for Ph.D. students pursuing a concentration (32 hours) or minor (16 hours) in Cultural Studies and Interpretive Research (CSR). The curriculum provides individualized training in cultural studies, social theory, and interpretive research for students completing their doctoral degrees within the affiliated programs. The requirements for the major or minor are designed to provide sufficient flexibility for students to pursue one of several areas of disciplinary and departmental specialization while obtaining expertise in cultural studies, social theory and interpretive research.
This interdisciplinary concentration in Cultural Studies and Interpretive Research derives from a body of knowledge developed since World War II. Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study which examines contemporary culture, popular media, and those cultural practices and cultural forms that shape the meanings of self, identity, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, and gender in everyday life. The program draws on current research and theory in several critical disciplines. Its focus, history and depth derive from scholarly traditions in the social sciences and the humanities, including English, History, Linguistics, Anthropology, Sociology, Communications, Education, and Kinesiology. This concentration combines ethnographic and critical textual approaches to the study of popular literature, media, myth, advertising, religion, science, cinema, television, and new communication and information technologies.
History and Need
The University of Illinois has been recognized for many years as a major center for research and training in cultural studies, criticism, interpretive theory, qualitative research, cultural values and ethics. Its reputation in this field involves activities in many units, departments and programs, including the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, and the Institute of Communication Research.
Independent training programs with a cultural studies orientation have evolved in several departments and units. The program in Cultural Studies and Interpretive Research consolidates these long-standing interests, by coordinating the considerable strengths in cultural studies, social theory and qualitative research on this campus. Students in CSR will focus their course work and fulfill the other requirements by utilizing the campus resources, but they will earn their Ph.D.'s in their home departments.
Departmental degrees stem from a period when these departments were exclusively "mission or generalist oriented," at which time their functions could be dictated by the needs of society as defined by a specific discipline. Over a period of decades, as disciplinary boundaries have blurred, departments have become increasingly domain-oriented rather than more narrowly subject-oriented. The program in Cultural Studies and Interpretive Research reflects the more interdisciplinary demands of a society increasingly dependent upon knowledge that can no longer be provided by a single discipline. Considerable need now exists in the Ph.D. job market for students with qualitative research skills, and cultural studies concentrations. This is especially the case for communications, sociology and other social science fields. One-fourth of the job openings in communications, for example, currently include cultural studies or qualitative research as an emphasis.
Program of Study
ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS. Graduate applicants will be required to have training equivalent to one advanced course each in qualitative/interpretive analysis, and social and cultural theory. They should also be generally familiar with current issues in cultural and literary theory, and qualitative/critical/interpretive research. Applicants who may be deficient in one or more of these areas will be expected to remove such deficiencies during their first year of study in the concentration.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS. A one-semester intercollege Proseminar in Cultural Studies and Critical Interpretation (COMM/EPS 575) will be taken as soon in the graduate program as possible. In addition, students will choose seminars from a series of core courses in social theory, cultural studies, and qualitative/interpretive methodology taught by faculty from the participating programs. They will also select substantive courses combining theory, research and specialization from the student's home department. CSR students will be asked to design an individualized plan of study leading to advanced competence in either a 32-hour concentration or a 16-hour minor. Areas of concentration could include the media, popular culture, the politics of discourse, or ethnographies of everyday life. Students can begin the CSR program during their second year of graduate studies.
SAMPLE 32-HOUR CONCENTRATION. The CSR course requirements are the one-unit Proseminar (COMM/EPS 575), three units of substantive area courses with a cultural studies emphasis, and four units of Qualitative Research courses from the approved list of Core Courses. Listed below is a sample concentration, but it can be spread out over more than two years.
Year One:
FALL
1. Cultural Studies (CS) Proseminar
2. Qualitative Research (QR)
3. Subsantive Area (sa)
SPRING
4. CS 2
5. QR 2
6. SA 2
Year Two:
7. CS3
8. Qualitative Research 3 (SOC/COMM 580)
9. SA 3
Methodologically, the student in this program learns how to combine and use a variety of qualitative, interpretive methodologies, from semiotics and critical textual analysis, to interpretive and auto-ethnography, personal narrative, and the practices of investigative, civic journalism. Recommended methodological courses, which would fulfill the CSR requirement, include at least one course from each of the following two lists:
List One
History 502 History and Postcolonial Studies
TBA
TBA
List Two
SOC/COMM 580 Seminar on Advanced Interpretive Methods
English TBA
COMM 590/SPCOM 538 Methods of Critical Cultural Analysis
16-HOUR MINOR. The 16-hour minor would include the Proseminar, one QR course, and two other courses with a cultural studies emphasis that would not normally count toward a student's degree.
TEACHING REQUIREMENTS. Students will be expected to teach courses in their degree area, according to the standards of the home unit. Unless explicit graduate student training is already required by a student's home unit, CSR graduate students in the 32-hour concentration will be asked to participate in a series of mentored, teaching assistant workshops, with an emphasis on experimental pedagogical practices.
EXAMINATIONS. Upon the completion of CSR's required (and recommended) coursework, students in the 32-hour concentration may sit for a series of written examinations, stressing both breadth of knowledge and depth of understanding in cultural studies and interpretive research. The number will be determined by the student's doctoral committee in consultation with the home unit; the home unit may agree to accept one or all of the CSR examinations as fulfilling part of its own requirements. When the examinations have been successfully completed, students will present the CSR committee with a predissertation proposal statement, including a brief discussion of the problem, research materials, and a description of the theory and method to be used in the dissertation.
ADMINISTRATION (Director and Executive Committee). Responsibility for administration of the proposed graduate study program will reside in a program director, and an inter-unit executive committee composed of faculty with recognized competence in this field. Members would be appointed annually to the committee by department or unit heads, with one faculty member representing each affiliated program. In order to facilitate collaboration with the certification program in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, the Unit's director also has one position on the Executive Committee. General membership on the core CSR teaching faculty would be reviewed every five years.
The responsibility of the program's Executive Committee would be to provide interunit coordination and planning of instructional programs in Cultural Studies and Interpretive Research. It would enhance the effectiveness of the ongoing departmental programs by stimulating cooperation in teaching and collective research, and by providing an administrative vehicle for conducting a graduate program in the field across department and college lines.
CSR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS.
a. Establish and administer a graduate program leading to a graduate concentration or a minor in CSR. This should be the initial and mandatory function of the Committee. It would entail the identification of cultural studies emphases within existing Ph.D. programs, and specifying the common features of those offerings. Areas of shared intellectual focus might include the following topics: colonial and postcolonial theories of the intellectual; the social text and popular culture; theories of social and cultural criticism; questions of power organized around differences of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, and colonial relations; the internationalization of fiction, cinema, and ethnography; the ethnographer as tourist; new forms of the social, interpretive text; the cultural transformations that draw cities, societies and states into larger transnational relationships, and global political economies; the technologies of surveillance that define public and private spaces in the global cultural system; the significance of the print and electronic media in the political sphere and in public culture, and their consequences for democratic institutions and their citizens; the curricular development of new pedagogical practices that interactively engage students in critical cultural analysis.
b. Review current departmental course offerings in the field of CSR and formulate recommendations regarding revisions and curricular sequences which would enhance the scope and quality of instruction available in the major field. In so doing, consideration should be given to such matters as what core courses are appropriate to the field, possibilities for improving the quality of instruction by joint teaching, addition of new courses, etc. The Committee will serve as an advisory agency to the departments relative to proposals for changes in course offerings.
c. Conduct an interdepartmental graduate proseminar as a means of broadening the knowledge of graduate students relative to current research problems in the field. Such a seminar should provide an opportunity for the students to participate directly as well as to hear senior faculty and external speakers.
d. Prepare a proposal for the administration of an inter-unit training grant.
e. While not approving new faculty appointments, be available for consultation and advice to departments who recruit new faculty whose interests include cultural studies and interpretive research.
f. Undertake any additional activities that will serve to strengthen research and graduate training in this field within the University.
FUNDING. Financial support for graduate students will come from the affiliated departments in the form of assistantships and fellowships, and from whatever financial support for students the inter-unit Executive Committee might be able to secure (e.g. NSF predoctoral traineeships).
Core Faculty
*Karen L. Alston, Associate Professor, Educational Policy Studies
Nicholas Burbules, Professor, Educational Policy Studies
*Cheryl Cole, Associate Professor, Kinesiology
Ramona Curry, Associate Professor, English/Cinema Studies
**Norman Denzin, Professor, Communications Research/Sociology/Cinema Studies
*Peter Garrett, Professor, English/Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
James Hay, Associate Professor, Speech Communication
*William Kelleher, Associate Professor, Anthropology
Zine Magubane, Associate Professor, Sociology
Cameron McCarthy,Professor, Communications Research/Educational Policy Studies
Cary Nelson, Professor, English
Andrea Press, Professor, Communications Research/Speech Communication/Gender and Women's Studies Program
*David Prochaska, Associate Professor, History
Synthia Sydnor, Associate Professor, Kinesiology
Paula Treichler, Professor, Medical Humanities/Communications Research/Gender and Women's Studies Program
Angharad Valdivia,Professor, Communications Research/Latina-Latino Studies/Gender and Women's Studies Program
**Executive Committee Chair
*Executive Committee members designated by unit
Required Course for Concentration and Minor
COMM/EPS 575 Proseminar in Cultural Studies and Critical Interpretation
Cameron McCarthy (with lectures by selected core faculty)
This course introduces students to the history, applications and limitations of several theoretical and methodological approaches to cultural studies. Debates and issues within cultural studies, and debates between cultural studies and other schools of thought serve as the organizing agenda.
Core Courses
ANTHROPOLOGY 504 Colonialism and Culture
William Kelleher
This course interrogates anthropology's relationship to colonialism. It considers contemporary theories of colonial discourse and the recent literature which takes exception to the generalities of those theories.
COMMUNICATIONS 590/SPEECH COMM 538 Feminist Theory, the Media, and Politics of the Popular
Andrea Press
Investigates major areas of theoretical debate in feminist media theory. This course develops historical, psychoanalytic, interpretive, and social scientific approaches to the study of film and television texts, their reception, and in some cases their production. Viewings and readings will be focused on "popular" film and television (rather than documentary or independent products).
COMMUNICATIONS 590/SPEECH COMM 538 Methods of Critical, Cultural Analysis
Andrea Press
This course debates the definition of "research" in cultural studies. It looks at the definition of "methodology" in both humanities and social science research. With a focus on qualitative methodologies used most often in cultural studies, it looks in-depth at a series of cultural studies texts, analyzing them from a methodological perspective.
COMMUNICATIONS 590 AIDS, Medicine and Cultural Studies
Paula Treichler
Concrete exemplars from medicine are used to explore a number of central concepts in cultural studies (ideology, hegemony, identity, culture, media, etc.). These examples are furnished through work on AIDS and other illness conditions by artists and videomakers, anthropologists, media scholars and practitioners, cultural critics, social scientists, physicians, health policy makers, people with AIDS and HIV and their advocates and caretakers.
COMMUNICATIONS 590 Transnational Multicultural Studies
Angharad Valdivia
Explores contemporary issues of global communications, gender, culture, and development, using a framework rooted in a combination of international communication studies, Latin American studies, women in development (WID) studies, and feminist multicultural studies. Following the general theoretical background, it proceeds to case studies on particular countries and women.
EDUCATIONAL POLICY STUDIES 516 Theories of Educational and Social Change
Nicholas Burbules
Examines philosophical issues in social and political theory as they pertain to educational problems. The course includes topics such as autonomy, democratic education, educational reform, and social change.
[ENGLISH 463 Theories of Popular Culture
Ramona Curry
Critically examines a range of approaches to the analysis and evaluation of popular and mass culture. Special attention is devoted to critical theories of the Frankfurt School; various distinctions between "high" and "low" art, including theories of postmodernism; and contemporary cultural studies, including popular media forms such as soap opera and music video.
ENGLISH 481 Cultural Studies and Poststructuralism
Cary Nelson
This seminar's key themes are the status of textual and discursive analysis in cultural studies, the continuing transformations of notions of relative autonomy, relationality in cultural studies, and the challenge of studying one cultural domain – a subculture or a body of literary texts – in relation to others. Specific comparative projects are undertaken, such as comparing British and American work on race.]
HISTORY 502 History and Postcolonial Studies
David Prochaska
This course roots postcolonial studies in specific historical, political, and cultural contexts. It includes many of the works from history, literature, and the visual arts that are collectively establishing the contours of what an be termed a "new colonial history."
KINESIOLOGY 441/591 Games in Culture
Synthia Sydnor
Introduces students to the premises, theory and methodology of one version of cultural anthropological studies of games in culture. The emphasis is on thinking of game as a metaphor for many of the things people do in their everyday lives such as shop, travel and "sport," and then using the tools of cultural studies to understand/critique these activities.
KINESIOLOGY/GENDER & WOMEN'S STUDIES 442(594) Body, Culture and Society
Cheryl L. Cole
Critically interrogates the body as it is traversed by a complex cultural politics. This course examines how difference has been articulated through the body and how these inscriptions/territorializations/dispersions relate to the body as a semiotic field in political struggles in the late twentieth century.
SOCIOLOGY/COMMUNICATIONS 580 Advanced Interpretive Methods
Norman Denzin
Examination of interpretive methods, including emancipatory ethics, performance theory, feminist and epistemologies of color, case analysis, semiotic, discourse, narrative, hermeneutic, and critical approaches to the cultural and field text, postpositivist and poststructural approaches to validity and interpretation, voice, audience, the art and politics of interpretation, multiple interpretive communities.
SPEECH COMMUNICATION 538 Cultural Theory and Cinema Studies
James Hay
Considers how cinema has been the subject of intersecting discourses, such as the scientific, governmental, legal, academic, media, and artistic. Addresses a wide range of discourses and formations – from eighteenth and nineteenth century work on observational technologies to the most recent modes of analyzing cinema, other screen media, and the place of the cinematic in narratives about modernity.
Norman Denzin, Chair
Cultural Studies and Interpretive Research Program
Institute of Communications Research
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
810 S. Wright Street
229 Gregory Hall, MC-463
Urbana, IL 61801
phone: (217) 333-0795, 333-1549
fax: (217) 244-9580
