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A Resource CD (provided) |
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ENGL 6650/7650:
Special Topics in Popular Culture
Cult Television
Spring 2011 | Room: PH 308, Day/Time: Tuesday, 600-900 pm
About David Lavery | Class Members | Texts | Course Requirements | Agenda | Cult TV Blog | Take-Home Final Exam
Office: PH 372 | Office Hours: M 300-430 pm W 200-400 pm | Office Phone/Voice-Mail: 615 898-5648
E-mail: david.lavery@gmail.com | Home Page: http://davidlavery.net
Dr. David Lavery is Professor of English at MTSU (1993- ). The author of over one hundred and twenty published essays, chapters, and reviews, he is author / co-author / editor / co-editor of twenty three books, including The Essential Cult Television Reader and a textbook, Television Art (Blackwell) and books on Lost (2), Twin Peaks, X-Files, The Sopranos (a trilogy), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Teleparody, Seinfeld, Deadwood, My So-Called Life, Gilmore Girls, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, TV Finales, and Crying. The organizer of international conferences on the Whedonverses, Lost, and The Sopranos, a founding co-editor of the journals Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, Critical Studies in Television, and Series/Season/Show, he has lectured around the world on the subject of television (Australia, Turkey, the UK, Portugal, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany) and has been a guest/source for the BBC, NPR, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The New York Times, A Folha de Sao Paulo (Brazil), Publica (Portugal), AP, The Toronto Star, USA Today. From 2006-2008, he taught at Brunel University in London.
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A Resource CD (provided) |
| ECTVR | TCTVB | RCD |
Click on the covers to order the books from Amazon.
Title in brackets = claimed Essential Cult TV Encyclopedia entry. Go here to see a list of possible series/shows.
Shiloh Carroll [Fringe] | Jennifer Crosby [Stargate Atlantis] | Ariel Dingus [Dead Like Me] | Gary Gravely [Friday Night Lights] | Stephanie Graves [Pushing Daisies] | Mick Howard [3rd Rock from the Sun] | Leah Hurt [Spaced] | Lisa Jass [Seinfeld] | B. J. Keeton [Stargate Universe] | Luke Patton [True Blood] | Brandi Williamson [Weeds]
Critical Essay: A 2,000 word reading/analysis/interpretation of a particular episode or theme or character or narrative technique or cult characteristic or icon or subgenre . . . of a cult television series or show (or two or more considered together).—30% of course grade.
Major Paper: A fully researched entry for the online version of the Essential Cult TV Encyclopedia (written in the style of the entries in the print volume) of not less than 4,000 words. Must be on a series/show not yet covered in the ECTVR. [Assignments made on a first come, first serve basis.]—50% of course grade.
Take-Home Essay Exam: From a menu of topics (available two weeks in advance), you will select two and write 1500 word essays. These topics will all be "leading questions," intended to inspire your own comprehensive synthesis of course ideas, questions, problems.—20% of course grade. Go here to find the Take-Home Final.
Intro to the Course | Stephanie Graves' Cult Film Power Point | Cult Media: Intro | Meeting 2 [Twilight Zone, The Prisoner, Star Trek] | Quality Television | Meeting 3 [Twin Peaks] | Meeting 4 [British Cult Comedy] | Meeting 5 [The X-Files] | Meeting 6 [Buffy the Vampire Slayer]: BtVS | Whedon | Whedon Studies | "We'd Do the Weird Stuff" | Meeting 7 [Firefly]: "Objects in Space" | Meeting 8 [American Cult Comedy] | Meeting 9 [Life on Mars] | Meeting 10 [Battlestar Galactica] | Meeting 11 [Supernatural] | Meeting 12 [Doctor Who] | Meeting 13-14 [Lost, Fringe]: Lost as Cultural Phenomenon | Genesis of Lost | Lost Characters | What was LOST | Lost Episodes | Lost Seasons | Fringe
1/18/11 | Meeting 1
Introduction to the Course
Cult TV Series of the Week: Twilight Zone
Viewing: "Eye of the Beholder" (2.6) and "Little Girl Lost" (3.26)
Required Readings:
ECTVR 1-6; "Never Give Up, Never Surrender!": The Resilience
of Cult Television—Abbott (TCTVB
1); Observations on Cult Television—Pearson
(TCTVB 7)
1/25/11 | Meeting
2
Cult TV Series of the Week: Star Trek and The Prisoner
Viewing: "The City on the Edge of Forever" (Star Trek, 1.28); "Fallout" and "Bernie Williams Interview" (The Prisoner)
Required Reading:
Wilcox, ECTVR 244;
Geraghty,
TCTVB 131; Howard, ECTVR 189
Recommended Reading: TBA
Special Topics/Readings: Case
Study: HBO and The Sopranos—Johnson
(TCTVB 148); Cult Channels: Showtime, FX, and Cult TV—Brown
(TCTVB 155)
2/1/11 | Meeting
3
Cult TV Series of the Week: Twin Peaks
Viewing: Pilot, Episodes 2.8 and 2.22
Required Reading:
Bianculli, ECTVR 299; Booy,
TCTVB 28
Recommended Reading: Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks (RCD)
Special Topics/Readings:
Boldly Going: Music and Cult TV—Halfyard
(TCTVB 121)
2/8/11 | Meeting 4
Cult TV Series of the Week:
British Cult Comedy [Absolutely
Fabulous, Blackadder, Black Books, Father
Ted, The
League of Gentlemen, Little Britain, Monty
Python’s Flying Circus, Red Dwarf, Shameless,
Spaced
Viewing: TBA
Required Reading: Amy-Chinn, ECTVR 208; Hunt, ECTVR, 134; Karpovich, ECTVR 7; Landy, ECTVR 166
Recommended Reading: TBA
Special Topics/Readings: The Cult of Cult TV?—Fiddy (225)
2/15/11 | Meeting
5
Cult TV Series of the Week: The X-Files
| PDFs of the X-Files Mythology Collection Timelines: Abduction
| Black Oil | Colonization
| Super Soldiers
Viewing: "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" (3.20) and "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" (4.7)
Required Reading:
Koven, ECTVR 337; Brown,
TCTVB 163
Recommended Reading: Deny All Knowledge: Reading The X-Files (RCD)
Special Topics/Readings: Cult TV and the Television Industry—Johnson
(TCTVB 135); Cult TV and New Media—Richards
(TCTVB 179)
2/22/11 | Meeting 6
Cult TV Series of the Week: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Viewing: "Hush" (4.10) and "Once More with Feeling" (6.7)
Recommended Reading: Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; all issues of Slayage: The Online Journal of the Whedon Studies Association (RCD)
Special Topics/Readings: Transgressive TV—Jes Battis (TCTVB 77); Subcultural Celebrity—Hills (TCTVB 233)
3/1/11 | Meeting
7
Cult TV Series of the Week:
Firefly | Character Intros: Inara
(Graves); Book (Patton); Simon (Jass); Wash (Keeton)
Viewing: "Out of Gas" (1.5) and "Objects in Space" (1.10)
Required Reading:
Telotte, ECTVR 111
Recommended Reading: Firefly/Serenity Special Issue of Slayage 7.1 [25], Winter 2008 (RCD)
Special Topics/Readings: Representation: Exploring Issues of Sex, Gender,
and Race in Cult Television—Jowett (TCTVB
107)
Spring Break
3/15/11 | Meeting
8
Cult TV Series of the Week:
American Cult Comedy [Big
Bang Theory, The Comeback, The
Daily Show and
The Colbert Report, Freaks
and Geeks, The
Larry Sanders Show, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Seinfeld,
South
ParkThe
Larry Sanders Show, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Seinfeld,
South
Park,
The
Simpsons, Wonderfalls
Viewing: TBA
Required Reading:
Beeler, ECTVR
322; Ford, ECTVR 77; Gray, ECTVR
120 & 221;
Holtzclaw, ECTVR 181; Morreale,
ECTVR 68
Recommended Reading: TBA
Special Topics/Readings: Television and the Cult Audience: A Primer—Robson
(209)
Either Critical Essay or Major Paper Due by This Date
3/22/11 | Meeting
9
Cult TV Series of the Week: Life on Mars
Viewing: Episodes 1.1 (The Pilot) and 2.8 (Series Finale)
Required Reading: Nelson, ECTVR 142; Lavery, “The Emigration of Life on Mars: Sam and Gene Do America”; Angelina Karpovich and David Lavery, Life on Mars Symposium: A Report (RCD).
Recommended Reading: TBA
Special Topics/Readings: The Cult of Cult TV?—Fiddy (225)
3/29/11 | Meeting
10
Cult TV Series of the Week:
Battlestar Galactica
Viewing: "Final Cut" (2.8) and "Daybreak: Part 2" (4.20)
Required Reading:
Lavery and Maull 44
Recommended Reading: Finding Battlestar Galactica: An Unauthorized Guide (RCD)
Special Topics/Readings:
Playing Hard to 'Get'—How to Write Cult TV—Espenson (TCTVB 45)
4/5/11 | Meeting 11
Cult TV Series of the Week:
Supernatural
Viewing: "Mystery Spot" (3.11) or "Wishful Thinking" (4.8) and "Monster Movie" (4.5) or "The Monster at the End of This Book" (4.18)
Required Reading: Peirse, ECTVR 260
Recommended Reading: TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Supernatural Road Map (RCD)
Special Topics/Readings: Mainstream Cult—Hills (TCTVB 67); Members Only: Cult TV from Margins to
Mainstream—Angelini & Booy (19)
4/12/11 | Meeting 12
Cult TV Series of the Week: Doctor Who
Viewing:
Hills, ECTVR 97; Booy,
TCTVB 189
Required Reading:
"Love & Monsters" (2.10) and "Blink" (3.10)
Recommended Reading: TBA
Special Topics/Readings: Writing Tie-ins—Holder (TCTVB 191)
4/19/11 | Meeting 13
Cult TV Series of the Week:
Fringe
Required Reading: Onion TV Club Fringe Recaps (Noel Murray)
Viewing: "Peter" (2.16) and "Brown Betty" (2.20)
Recommended Reading: TBA
Special Topics/Readings: Gen, Slash, OT3s, and Crossover—The Varieties of Fan Fiction—Kaveney (TCTVB 243)
4/26/11 | Meeting 14
Cult TV Series of the Week: Lost
Viewing: "Flashes Before Your Eyes" (3.8) and "The End" (6.16)
Required Reading:
Dolan, ECTVR 149
Recommended Reading: Unlocking the Meaning of Lost (2nd Edition); Lost's Buried Treasures (3rd Edition) (RCD)
5/3/11 | Meeting 15: Each class member will make a ten minute presentation on his/her Essential Cult TV Encyclopedia entry.
5/4/11: Either Critical Essay or Major Paper Due by This Date
5/6/11: Take-Home Essay Final Due by This Date