Category: teaching

CST120: The Happiness Industry

~ Renee ~ Leave a comment
14792544335_b1f7e0878b_z
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

~ Renee ~ Leave a comment

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

~ Renee ~ Leave a comment

nB2mdEw

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/

Why you’re secretly addicted to food porn

Porn: Good for us?

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

CST120: garbage

~ Renee ~ Leave a comment
141427163_349d069a10_z
‘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

~ Renee ~ Leave a comment

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

~ Renee ~ Leave a comment
c0821ac44522f9e340e238ae5e1f698aa35f18a9
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?
IMG_0437
Taste Discussion points – Wed 830 Class