This course introduces the students to the theoretical frameworks of graduate study in Cultural Studies by focusing on the debates around the definitions and uses of the concept of culture as well as on such specific issues as orientalism/occidentalism, cultural constructions and contestations of gender and sexuality, media and popular culture, and the changing configurations of private and public spheres. It combines the overview of the major theoretical and methodological approaches in the field of cultural politics and criticism with a critical discussion of various applications of these approaches in specific social, political, and historical contexts.
