Spring 2022  |  AMST 3112 Section 001: Prince, Porn, and Public Space: The Cultural Politics of the Twin Cities in the 1980s (55180)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
01/18/2022 - 05/02/2022
Mon, Wed 02:30PM - 03:45PM
UMTC, East Bank
Fraser Hall 102
Enrollment Status:
Closed (80 of 80 seats filled)
Also Offered:
Course Catalog Description:
This course uses music (especially Prince and the Replacements), debates around pornography/sex, and shifts around access to public space in order to explore the local culture and national importance of the Twin Cities during the 1980s.
Class Description:

This virtual class explores Minneapolis' central role in shaping various cultural moments and struggles in the U.S. during and beyond the 1980s. We will survey Minneapolis musical acts like Prince as well as local debates about sex, public/private space, and feminism and how they shaped, were shaped by, and worked together with similar cultural events and people in the Midwest and U.S. As such, this class will be local, regional, and national in its scope.


In order to adhere to the Liberal Education Diversity and Social Justice Theme, this course will not only examine the interplay between racial, ethnic, classed, gendered, and sexual forms of social power and difference in Minnesota in particular, and American society in general, during the 1980s, but we will also explore the legacies of such interactions and their social, economic, and political effects in the twenty-first century. Throughout the semester, students will learn how local and national debates around issues like pornography, HIV/AIDS, housing and public space, sex(uality), and youth and musical subcultures during the 1980s have privileged some, and policed other, bodies across lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Further, students will learn how such structural inequalities have shaped various forms of political activism and mobilization from the 1980s until the present day. In particular, students will critically assess, analyze, and construct their own arguments about how cultural struggles around sex, popular culture, and space became sites of feminist, queer, and anti-racist activism. The diverse readings and topics covered in this course are a direct result of the interdisciplinarity of the course, drawing on a mix of primary and secondary sources from fields and disciplines like History, Political Science, popular music studies, and critical race, queer, and feminist theory. The multiple source material will provide students with a diverse and critical knowledge base about diversity and social justice that they can use not only across various departments at the University, but also in their everyday lives.
Who Should Take This Class?:
Undergraduates
Learning Objectives:
Students will learn how to: 1. Articulate, and read texts about, the history, legacies, and importance of sex and sound cultures in Minnesota during the 1980s; 2. Understand how race, class, gender, sexuality, and other lines of power and difference are intertwined, and how they have come to shape U.S. culture, politics, and society; 3. Develop skills in historical analysis; 4. Recognize how popular culture is intertwined with politics
Grading:
Student Option
Exam Format:
Short writing assignments will be used to evaluate how well students can communicate effectively the materials and themes covered in the course.
Class Format:
Lecture
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/55180/1223
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
5 November 2020

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