CCI712 : Genre and popular culture / College of Creative Arts

This course exposes students to notions of genre in the context of popular cultural forms. The course examines both theoretical and practical aspects of genre across media from cinema, television, literature to theatre. The first part of the course deals with the ways in which genre is regarded as taxonomy, ways that concern the definition, classification, and labelling, as well as how genres fit into notions of popular culture as mass culture, folk culture, myth, postmodern culture, and arena of hegemony. The second part investigates how genre is understood by audiences and the reasons for specific genres’ appeal and popularity in various mediums, including horror (cinema), romance (literature), comedy (television), and musical (theatre).