English 228A, Section 001: Topics in Literary and Cultural Studies

Popular Favourites, or “Song Lyrics Are Poetry, Too”

Lectures: MWF 12:00-12:50 in Buchanan B210.

Prof. Kevin McNeilly
Office: Buchanan Tower 401, phone 604.822.4466
Office Hours, Winter 2010: Wednesdays, 2:00 to 4:00

Course Description


True story: my ninth-grade English teacher kept trying to convince her class that pop song lyrics were a kind of poetry. In this course, I want us a bit belatedly to take her at her word. How do words and music function as literature, in the classroom and in the popular imagination? Following up on a cue from the cultural theorist Stuart Hall, I’m asking us to investigate the implications of treating song as one of the “popular arts” – that is, to think about the various relationships between the aesthetic (or the artistic) and the popular. What becomes of notions of taste or of literary value when we have to teach pop song lyrics as poetry? Or what happens when we get our ethics, as Nick Hornby suggests in High Fidelity, by asking ourselves “what Bruce Springsteen would do”? The recent awarding of a Pulitzer prize to Bob Dylan affirms the cultural status in America of popular song. What does this say about the place of the poetic or of the literary in contemporary Anglo-American culture? We’ll read texts that investigate the formative reception of pop song in youth culture – by Roddy Doyle and Lavinia Greenlaw. We’ll also analyze a number of pop and folk lyrics directly, and look into the history of contemporary pop song, examining its roots in populist folk music (investigating questions of race and gender politics) and in musical theatre. Students will be able to introduce their own favourite songs or artists into class discussions. We’ll also analyze the ways in which representative television drama – Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks – and graphica -- Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen -- incorporate popular music into their depiction of emergent, and troubled, North American identities.

Required Texts

Recommended Texts

Grading and Assignments

Lecture Schedule
Lectures are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 12:00 in Buchanan B210.
Please note that I cannot affirm the accuracy or viability of the external material linked to this webpage; these links are provided solely as supplemental information for our class discussions.

Monday January 4
Introductory
Please bring to class a copy of your current favourite pop song. (I'll be discussing Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"
Click here for the video (on YouTube) for Beyoncé's song.
Click here for a video cover of the single ladies song by Pomplamoose.
Click here for the single ladies opening sequence on Glee.
Click here for the the single ladies football team dance on Glee.
Click here for Justin Timberlake et al. doing the single ladies dance with Beyoncé on Saturday Night Live.
Click here to watch a baby dance on YouTube to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)."
Click here for a set of links on the Frankfurt School.
Click here for a set of links from the same (excellent) site, the Voice of the Shuttle, on the study of popular and mass culture.
Click here for a text by John Fiske, a pre-eminent theorist of popular culture, that -- while it's about television -- differentiates very well among differing theories of popular and mass culture.
Click here for "'Queerying' Gender: Heteronormativity in Early Childhood Education" by Kerry H. Robinson, which defines "heteronormativity" -- a term we used in class (which comes from the work Of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) -- very clearly.
Wednesday January 6
Cole Porter, "All of You" (in Kimball 156)
Click here for the "Cole Wide Web," a site devoted to the work of Cole Porter.
Click here for a PBS American Masters portrait of Porter.
Click here for the "Cole Porter Reference Guide."
Click here for the Internet Broadway Database entry on Porter.
Click here for Todd's Cole Porter Page: I don't know who Todd is, but he has some useful links here.
Click here for a jpeg of a poster for the production of Silk Stockings, showing actor Don Ameche, whom we mentioned in class.
Click here for a descriptive page on the original production of Silk Stockings.
Friday January 8
Cole Porter, "Anything Goes" (in Kimball 57)
Click here for Helen Merrill's webpage.
Click here for "On Popular Music" by Theodor Adorno.

This week's PLAYLIST includes Beyonce and Pomplamousse singing about the Single Ladies, Helen Merrill, "All of You," and Cole Porter himself singing "Anything Goes."

Monday January 11
Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
Click here for the entry on Roddy Doyle from Irish Writers Online.
Click here for a brief bio of Doyle.
Click here for a the beginning of the Encyclopedia Brittanica entry on Doyle. (Sadly, you'd have to pay for access to the rest.)
Click here for audio of Doyle reading from his novel A Star Called Henry in 1999. (You may find useful information in the questions from the audience.)
Wednesday January 13
Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
Click here for an interview with Roddy Doyle.
Click here for a 1999 interview with Doyle.
Click here for an article from The Guardian on Doyle.
Click here for a reading by Doyle from his novel A Star Called Henry.
Friday January 15
Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
Click here for a (slightly modified) video excerpt from Alan Parker's film The Commitments of the band performing "Mustang Sally."
Click here for a video of Wilson Pickett doing "Mustang Sally." (His name is misspelled in the YouTube titling.)
Click here for a video of Wilson Pickett and James Brown.
Click here for Wilson Pickett singing "Land of 1000 Dances" on David Letterman.
Click here for a video of James Brown performing "Sex Machine" in 1971.
Click here for a video excerpt from Alan Parker's film The Commitments, "I'm black and I'm proud . . ."

This week's PLAYLIST includes Miles Davis, "So What," James Brown, "Sex Machine," Miley Cyrus, "Party in the USA," James Brown (via Jimmy Forrest), "Night Train," And And ! And (any song)

Monday January 18
Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
Click here for a printable page on scansion and metrics in poetry.
Wednesday January 20
Freaks and Geeks
Click here for Paul Feig's website. (Feig is the co-creator of Freaks and Geeks.)
Click here for an interview with Paul Feig.
Click here for the Freaks and Geeks site at Shout! factory.
Click here for an episode guide for Freaks and Geeks.
Friday January 22
Freaks and Geeks

This week's PLAYLIST includes Joan Jett, "Bad Reputation"

Monday January 25
Group Presentations:
Click here for a description of the group presentation format.
Wednesday January 27
Freaks and Geeks Episodes 1 (Pilot) and 6 ("I'm With the Band")
Click here for a YouTube version of the opening shot of Orson Welles's film Touch of Evil.
Friday January 29
Freaks and Geeks

This week's PLAYLIST includes The Who, "My Generation," "Squeeze Box"

Monday February 1
Group Presentations: Sharan Pawa, Peter Planta, Cyrille Panadero, Jordan Fernandez, Bennett Macken, Andrew Pangilinan, Alexander Dean.
Click here for a description of the group presentation format.
Wednesday February 3
Lavinia Greenlaw, The Importance of Music to Girls
Click here for Lavinia Greenlaw's homepage.
Click here for Lavinia Greenlaw's other homepage.
Click here for the British Council page on Lavinia Greenlaw.
Click here for an interview with Lavinia Greenlaw.
Click here for Lavinia Greenlaw reading.
Click here for a YouTube video of Lavinia Greenlaw talking about science poetry and reading "Iron Lung."
Friday February 5
Lavinia Greenlaw, The Importance of Music to Girls
Click here for Devo's video for their cover of "Satisfaction."
Click here for The Jam performing "In the City" on Top of the Pops in 1977.
Click here for the appearance on Marc Bolan's 1977 show by The Jam, which Greenlaw describes in her memoir.

Monday February 8
Lavinia Greenlaw, The Importance of Music to Girls
Short essay due in class.
Click here for the topic sheet for the first essay.
Wednesday February 10
Lavinia Greenlaw, The Importance of Music to Girls
Friday February 12

Monday February 15- Friday February 26 READING BREAK -- NO CLASSES

Monday March 1
Group Presentations: Katelyn Maki, Irene Pobee, Natalie Hudson, Lauren Atkinson, Jamie wheeler, Renee Mok
Click here for a description of the group presentation format.
Wednesday March 3
Bob Dylan, Tarantula
Click here for Bob Dylan's official homepage -- lots of great material here, including sample audio of most of his songs (under "Albums"), as well as lyrics.
Click here for a YouTube video of the opening of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Don't Look Back, which features a famous version of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues."
There is a better, "official" version of the filmclip here, from Dylan's homepage, under "Videos"
Click here for a blog-style discussion of Tarantula.
Click here for "Four Pieces about Bob Dylan" by Robert Christgau.
Click here for a blog entry on Tarantula and Edgar Allan Poe.
Click here for "Tell-Tale Signs - Edgar Allan Poe and Bob Dylan: Towards a Model of Intertextuality" by Christopher Rollason
Click here for "Through the Eyes of Tom Joad: Patterns of American Idealism, Bob Dylan, and the Folk Protest Movement" by James Dunlap.
Click here for "I’M NOT THERE (1956-2007)" by Stephen Scobie.
Friday March 5
Bob Dylan, Tarantula
Click here for a music video for "Things Have Changed."
Click here to listen to "Worried Man Blues" by The Carter Family.

Monday March 8
Bob Dylan, Tarantula
Please listen to "Gotta Serve Somebody." (I'm also going to refer to "High Water (for Charlie Patton" from Love and Theft. All of these songs can be accessed on Bob Dylan's official website.)
Click here for a video of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen performing "Forever Young" together.
Click here for another video of Dylan and Springsteen.
I will have to cut class short today -- we will finish at 12:25 -- because I have a committee meeting I need to attend at 12:30.
Wednesday March 10
Group Presentations: Tara Chloe Dusanj, Danica Bjelica, Annya Pintak, Shelby MacRitchie, Kelsey Croft, Bryce Warnes
Click here for a description of the group presentation format.
Friday March 12
Please read the "Folklore" chapters from Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men.
Click here for a brief bio, with links, on Hurston.
Click here for a bibliographic project on Hurston.
Click here for a page relating the work of Hurston to that of novelist Alice Walker.
Click here for the Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive.
Click here for the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Humanities in Eatonville, Florida.
Click here for an archive, hosted by the State Archives of Florida, of mp3 sound files of recordings made by Zora Neale Hurston in the 1930s.
Click here for a YouTube video of ethnographic film footage set -- at its beginning -- to a recording of Zora Neale Hurston singing "Uncle Bud."
Click here for a website on Paul Laurence Dunbar, whose double-voiced work I mentioned in class. (Compare, for example, the poetic styles of "Dreams" and "When Malindy Sings," poems linked under "Collection.")

Monday March 15
Please keep reading the "Folklore" section of Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men.
Click here for a set of links to open-source academic articles on Hurston.
Click here for "Harlem Renaissance Resources" on Hurston, a brief bibliography.
Click here for a brief excerpt from Walt Disney's Song of the South, a film that has not been re-issued and that uses the folk figure of Uncle Remus and the Brer Rabbit stories.
Click here for an introduction (from the Stanford Presidential Lectures) of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Click here for a brief summary (from the same site) of The Signifying Monkey, and a description of the idea of signifyin(g).
Click here for an interview with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Click here for a YouTube version of a PBS interview (on Charlie Rose) with Gates, on the subject of race, ancestry and genetics.
Click here for an audio file of the poet Maya Angelou defining "signifying." (Click play.)
Wednesday March 17
Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men
Please read the "Hoodoo" section of Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men.
Friday March 19
Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men
Please read the "Hoodoo" section of Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men.
Click here for
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Monday March 22
Group Presentations: Giri Kim, Erin Ramlo, Michelle Hazlett
Click here for a description of the group presentation format.
Wednesday March 24
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen
Click here for the Alan Moore Fan Site.
Click here for an extensive set of annotations on Watchmen, explaining allusions and references in the text.
Click here for The Alan Moore Portal, with links to Watchmen sites.
Click here for another set of annotations on Watchmen.
Click here for "The Alan Moore Index," a set of links to articles on Moore's work, including Watchmen.
Click here for a review of Watchmen.
Click here for "A Brief History of the Graphic Novel" by Stan Tychinski.
Click here for a site with weblinks and background on graphic novels.
Click here for a presentation of "The Rakes Progress," a series of eight engravings by William Hogarth.
Click here for the index page for Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture. (This is intended to give students some idea as to the possible range of scholarly and intellectual work done under the rubric of "visual culture.")
Friday March 26
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen

Monday March 29
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen
Wednesday March 31
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen, and Cole Porter, "So In Love"
Friday April 2
GOOD FRIDAY -- UNIVERSITY CLOSED -- NO CLASS

Monday April 5
EASTER MONDAY -- UNIVERSITY CLOSED -- NO CLASS
Wednesday April 7
Group Presentations: Anna Brayko, Angelina Tagliafierro, Emily Cole, Heekyung See, Cameron Paul, Shusmita Islam, Jennifer Ayala
Click here for a description of the group presentation format.
Friday April 9
Cole Porter

Monday April 12
Group Presentations: Natalie Hodson, Miguel Arias Rozo, Tiffany Kwong, Alison Mah, Allison Stockdale, Bronwyn Malloy, Michael Thornton
Click here for a description of the group presentation format.
Wednesday April 14
REVIEW
Term paper due in class. Please note that the due-date for this assignmant has been extended.
Click here for the topic sheet for the term paper.
Click here for the outline for the final exam.