Who Am I? Adventures in Popular Culture (Fall 2020)
As you might remember from my post in April about A Virtual Pop Culture Art Exhibit, one of the assignments in my Popular Culture and Communication class asks students to think about how popular culture - broadly or narrowly defined - has shaped their identity, perceptions and behaviour. This is something that we consider over the course of the semester through readings about the CSI Effect (which influence can behaviour) , counter- and sub-cultures (which can influence identity) , and monsters (which can influence perceptions) - among other topics.
Over the course of the semester I also share how popular culture has influenced my life by wearing popular culture inspired clothing, including photos of myself participating in subcultures like punk culture, travelling and engaging in tourism, and posing with life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the Rock in my slides, and talking about how my doctoral research was inspired by my favourite book series.
About the assignment
The poster board assignments, like the final research projects, are a highlight of the semester. The assignment asks students to first think about how their identity and behaviour have been influenced by popular culture and then to represent that visually in the form of a poster, a video, or some alternative format. While we normally hold an in-person fair where students and faculty members experience the assignment in the form of an art exhibit, due to COVID-19 classes we weren’t able to do that this semester. Instead, our fantastic teaching assistant Emily took on the very important task of compiling the poster board assignments into a video.
our class video
Bonus FEATURES
In addition to the submissions compiled by Emily in the YouTube video, several students also took advantage of the online environment to prepare alternative formats.
A POPULAR CULTURE PLAYLIST - CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO LISTEN IN
A POP CULTURE WEBSITE - CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO SEE MORE
POP Culture: VIDEO SUBMISSIONS
Afterword
This assignment remains one of my favourite parts of the semester - I always enjoy seeing how creative and insightful the submissions are. Whether online or offline, I can guarantee that this will continue to be a staple of my popular culture class for many semesters to come.