These conventions and genres stand at the start of cultural study, some already formed and known in the common sense of the culture itself, others part of that culture's image in the histories made by cultures distant in time, space or social world. An account of a culture's conventions can be a tool of critique leading us from the individual texts, the local symbolic acts, to the wider social and historical meanings of cultural production. 2. 7-10 page paper on one of the week's readings, due 10 am Monday morning. 20 page analytical research paper that examines the cultural significance of either a single trial or a particular portrayal of a trial. A 1 page abstract of the proposed paper is due at midterm.
Attendance is required, as is a high level of class participation during discussion.
Attendance will be kept so please let me know ahead of time if you will be absent. Your grade in the class will reflect the amount of genuine intellectual growth you demonstrate over the course of the semester. The first three weeks of the course introduce and begin to deconstruct the principles that underlay both the jury system itself and our traditional perceptions of it. Unit One traces the emergence of modern mass media out of the selling of crime and spectatorship. It provides concrete examples that allow us to begin examining the impact of form on the interpretation of truth and justice.