Department of English

Anthony Grajeda

  • Associate Professor

agrajeda@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu

Spring 2010 Courses

Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time
11069 ENC1102H HONORS FRESHMAN COMPOSITION II Face2Face M,W,F 12:30PM - 1:20PM
No Description Available
11173 ENC1102H HONORS FRESHMAN COMPOSITION II Face2Face M,W,F 11:30AM - 12:20PM
No Description Available
21395 ENG4614 DISCOURSE GLOBAL CULTRL STUDIE Rdce Time M 4:30PM - 5:45PM
Special Topics: The Discourse of Global Cultural Studies


ENG 4614


Prof. Tony Grajeda

It has been said that the texts of American popular culture—in particular, pop cultural styles, aesthetics and practices —have become something of a global lingua franca, in which everyone "speaks" Madonna, McDonald's, and Mickey. But the discourse of western cultural imperialism is nothing new: the emergence of the cinema at the turn of the last century, for example, played a part in the colonialist enterprise, even as film culture gave rise to a utopian fantasy of the cinema as "visual Esperanto" — a new universal language based on images. This course will explore the latest stage of "globalization" by taking a cultural studies approach indebted to literary and cultural theory, one which examines not only the so-called Disneyfication of the world, but also those particular attempts to assimilate that culture into vernacular contexts. In other words, how and where have people both accepted and altered the textual "meaning" of Mickey? The course will introduce students to some key concepts and theoretical approaches to global cultural studies before focusing primarily on three cultural forms (cinema, television, popular music). We will analyze a range of texts from popular culture by attending to questions of transmission, translation and appropriation. To what extent does Hong Kong cinema turn Hollywood Chinese? Is "world music" a form of exoticism? How do kids in Mexico City "read" MTV?
Note: This course will be offered as an “M” (media-enhanced) course.