CST120: The Happiness Industry

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Happiness by flickr user Davide D’Amico licensed under CC-BY-NC2.0

 

What makes you happy? Would you rate yourself as being happy?

Try this:

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/take-the-happiness-test-quiz_1

 

Denmark has it all figured out!

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/welcome-to-the-happiest-country-on-earth/

Do you think they have the balance right?

 

Focus questions:

– How has happiness become a business?

– how does happiness intersect with consumption?

– how is unhappiness culturally coded?
– what is affective labour, and why is it important?
Read this:
– what are the main points raised in this article?
– what do you think?

 

CST120: Work

Work Work Work Work Work Work

– What do you think of, when you think of work? (how does the idea of work shape society?)

Focus Questions:

– what is the cultural significance of work?

– how does technology enable work? What changes in work has it enabled?

– why is there not more resistance to work?

-what is the role of gender in relation to work?

– What is the protestant work ethic?

What do you expect/hope for from work?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35460401

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/20-things-about-australian-working-culture-that-can-surprise-foreigners-2015-3

CST120: Pornography

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Focus Questions:

  • -how does one define pornography? Why is pornography so hard to define?
  • – what is the role of legislation in defining/regulating pornography?
  • – how does pornography demonstrate the cultural coding of texts?
  • – has modern society become ‘pornified’?

Sexting:

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/nsw/2016/04/07/sexting-laws-in-nsw–criminalising-teens-.html

http://www.lawstuff.org.au/nsw_law/topics/Sexting

Porn in Public?

http://theconversation.com/youre-watching-that-here-the-politics-of-porn-in-public-8394

Protest or Porn or Empowerment? Pornification of Popular Culture

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2014/04/05/rashida-jones-and-the-pornification-of-pop.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-11/kim-kardashian-nude-selfies-and-empowerment/7310348

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/free-the-nipple-protest-brighton-beach-censorship-social-media_uk_575949ede4b041514369549f

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/rendezview/free-the-nipple-campaign-is-not-empowering-for-women/news-story/cddc69e61100b512758adc8939808aa4

Art or Porn?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-09/bill-henson-model-alice-heyward-defends-controversial-photograph/8338430

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/21/mathilde-grafstrom-female-beauty-exhibition-banned-by-police_n_8852594.html

Playboy:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/18/playboy-nude-photos-bunny-gender-feminism

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/news-features/playboy-says-it-was-wrong-to-ditch-nudes-after-all-and-will-bring-them-back-this-year-20170214-gucqow.html

Other types of ‘porn’:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-03/young-inspiration-porn/4107006

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/04/what-food-porn-does-to-the-brain/390849/

http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/staff-editorials/10853/food-porn-psychology-addiction/

Porn: Good for us?

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/28803/title/Porn–Good-for-us-/

CST120: garbage

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‘Rubbish’ by Glen Scott licensed by CCBY-NC 2.0

 

Moral judgement about garbage?

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/all-too-much-the-people-who-cant-let-go-20130809-2rnca.html

Cult of tidying?

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/the-cultlike-rise-of-decluttering-is-it-healthy-20150908-gjhhzd.html

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-economics-of-decluttering-how-i-learned-to-ignore-sunk-costs-20160204-gmlnv1.html

Throwaway fashion?

 

Focus Questions:

– how is waste part of the moral economy?

– consider the paradox of waste in regards to consumer culture?

– what waste do we feel responsible for?

– how is waste an index of taste?

CST120: Technology

3-P-Ag.gif

http://www.vulture.com/2015/10/30-best-pop-songs-about-telephone-drama.html#

(Turkle to 5.05)

 

Moral panic? https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201507/moral-panic-who-benefits-public-fear

https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/sep/15/china-mobile-phone-lane-distracted-walking-pedestrians

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydneys-inground-street-signals-to-combat-wayward-pedestrians-on-mobile-phones-20170329-gv9ii5.html

The Attention Economy:

http://fortune.com/2015/08/12/attention-economy/

https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/jul/06/attention-economy-demise-middle-ground

Extra Reading: Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto

Click to access Haraway-CyborgManifesto-1.pdf

Focus Questions:

-how does technology influence our understanding of time?

– how have mobile phones changed us as humans?

– What is ‘intimate serendipity’?
– what is the attention economy?

CST120: taste

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Banquet Still Life (1644) Adriaen van Utrecht
– What discourses do you notice depicted in this sequence?
-What do you notice here – what, and who might be missing?
Focus Questions – think about these, referring to one or more of the weekly readings:
What are the similarities in the discourses employed for travel and food writing?

How is ‘taste’ related to class identities?

How is taste conditioned by ideas?

What is ‘ethnic’ food and what makes it culturally desirable?

What is ‘slow food’ (as understood by the foodie), and what makes it desirable?
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Taste Discussion points – Wed 830 Class

CST120: Travel

Traveler not Tourist - spotted in a window in Amsterdam image: Renee Middlemost
Traveler not Tourist – spotted in a window in Amsterdam Image: Renee Middlemost

Focus Questions:

– What is the importance of travel? Is it important?

– What is the gaze, and how does it shape our travel encounters?

– How does tourism relate to the notion of departure?

-What is the difference between a traveler and a tourist? What does this say about value judgements?

– According to Boorstin, how has the notion of adventure changed, and how does the ‘pseudo-event’ come about?

– What is the distinction between the authentic and the inauthentic? Is Disneyland a ‘real’ place?

 

http://www.traveller.com.au/where-to-next-places-to-go-in-2017-grkcb2

Additional reading:

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/34166/1/why-we-still-need-ways-of-seeing-john-berger

CST120: Reading the beach

‘Byron Bay Beach’ by Rob Deutscher Under License CCBY2.0

 

Focus Questions:

– what is the significance of the beach to Australian identity?
– what do you understand by the ‘symbolic meaning’ of the beach?
– what does Fiske mean when he says the beach is a text?
– how do we ‘read’ the beach?
– According to Fiske what is the difference between nature, and the natural?

 

https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/australians-beach

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-26/hoskin-australias-love-affair-with-the-jewel-sea/5169356

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/australians-at-play-20151223-glu1g9.html

 

CST120: Introduction and Australia Day

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Australia (A.K.A. Vegemite) by Vincent Brown licensed CCBY2.0

Need help?

Academic writing: https://www.uow.edu.au/student/services/ld/students/index.html

Technology/ Online help: http://www.uow.edu.au/student/services/digitalliteracy/index.html

 

Australia Day – some useful links:

http://www.australiaday.org.au/australia-day/about-our-national-day/

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/australia-day-invasion-day

 

 

http://www.convictcreations.com/culture/traditions.htm