CULT Course Schedule

300 Level Courses

CULT 320: Globalization and Culture. 3 credits.
Examines cultures in globalization, with special attention to the role of technologies and new media. Provides historical and contemporary contexts for understanding the relationships among circuits of production and consumption; population flows; social inequalities and collective identities; globalizations from "above" and "below;" built and natural environments.Offered by Cultural Studies. Limited to three attempts.
Mason Core: Mason Core, Global Contexts, Global Understanding, Just Societies
Registration Restrictions:

Students with a class of Freshman may not enroll.

Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.
CULT 390: Topics in Cultural Studies. 1-3 credits.
Topics of current interest in interdisciplinary cultural studies, covering such fields as media, popular culture, political economy, social identities, or regions in globalization. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different.Offered by Cultural Studies. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.
Specialized Designation: Topic Varies
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

800 Level Courses

CULT 802: Histories of Cultural Studies. 3 credits.
Historical survey of principal works and theories in the development of cultural studies. Notes: This course is designed for PhD level students. Students in a related MA program may take this course as the capstone to their MA as they are about to matriculate into the PhD in cultural studies.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to doctoral program, related master's degree, or permission of instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 804: Histories of Cultural Studies II. 3 credits.
Continues the historical survey of cultural studies up to the present and assesses possibilities for future development.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a PhD program and CULT 802 or permission of instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 806: Research Seminar in Cultural Studies. 3 credits.
Introduces research methods in cultural studies. Notes: Specific topics vary.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral; completion of CULT 802, CULT 804.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 808: Student/Faculty Colloquium in Cultural Studies. 1 credit.
Forum for presentation of original and current research in cultural studies. Notes: Students register for 1 credit per semester over a three-semester period.Offered by Cultural Studies. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 4 credits.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to doctoral program.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate or Non-Degree level students.

Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Satisfactory/No Credit scale.
CULT 810: Culture and Political Economy. 3 credits.
Surveys social science and humanities classics that relate cultural production and consumption to underlying political economic conditions. Includes Marx, Lukacs, Frankfurt School, semiotic neo-Marxism, productivist theories of power indebted to Foucault, Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Harvey, Jameson, Mauss, Mill, Polanyi, Sahlins, A. Smith, and Weber. Notes: This course is designed for the PhD student. Those students not admitted to a PhD program are required to contact the instructor.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program, or permission of instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 812: Visual Culture. 3 credits.
Examines theories, production, consumption, and reception of visual culture. Covers film, video, visual arts, music, display, ritual, performance, performativity, and theories of the aesthetic. Includes key readings from theorists such as Adorno, Artaud, Benjamin, Brecht, Bryson, Doane, Fiske, Heath, Marcuse, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. Notes: This course is designed for the PhD student. Those students not admitted to a PhD program are required to contact the instructor.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program or permission of instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 814: Gender and Sexuality. 3 credits.
Investigates notion of gender functions in maintaining and analyzing issues of social and cultural power. Examines conflicting notions of sexuality and their role in cultural signification. Seeks to explicate relationship of sexuality, gender. Notes: This course is designed for the PhD student. Those students not admitted to a PhD program are required to contact the instructor.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program, or permission of instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 816: Science/Technology. 3 credits.
Considers theories and major debates on culture of science, social construction of nature, and effects of technology on modern cultural forms. Includes readings from theorists such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Feyerabend, Bahro, Haraway, and Latour. Notes: This course is designed for the PhD student. Those students not admitted to a PhD program are required to contact the instructor.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program or permission of instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 818: Social Institutions. 3 credits.
Considers theories of institutional practice and social structures, from Max Weber to Michel Foucault. Covers prisons, bureaucracies, museums, schools, political parties, and social movements. Notes: This course is designed for the PhD student. Those students not admitted to a PhD program are required to contact the instructor.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program, or permission of instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 820: After Colonialism. 3 credits.
Surveys racial, ethnic, caste, and national identities in colonial contexts; the changing shape of the world system and reactions to it from the era of colonial conquest to the age of globalization. Special attention to anti-colonial critiques, postcolonial works, and the present shape of global inequalities. Notes: This course is designed for the PhD student. Those students not admitted to a PhD program are required to contact the instructor.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program, or permission of instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 822: Race and Culture. 3 credits.
Introduces foundational scholarship in race and cultural studies. Investigates the role of race in maintaining and analyzing issues of social and cultural power. Examines conflicting notions of race and ethnicity and their historical emergence in different times and places.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program, or permission of instructor
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy or Graduate.

Students in a Non-Degree Undergraduate degree may not enroll.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 824: Internet Cultures. 3 credits.
Examines internet cultures and their cultural, social, political, economic, and aesthetic implications. Introduces students to scholarly fields like internet studies, social media studies, platform studies, video game studies, critical AI and data studies, influencer studies, celebrity studies, or software studies. Includes traditional emphases from cultural studies, potentially including political economy, women’s and gender studies, race and ethnic studies, queer theory, postcolonialism and decolonialism, ecocriticism, affect theory, and more. Students will explore the ways that communities form online and how they impact their constituents, the way that identities are explored, formed, and represented online, the ideology and political economy of internet technologies, the way that internet technologies shape content creation, and other ways that the internet shapes culture and culture shapes the internet.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program, or permission of instructor
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy or Graduate.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 860: Special Topics in Cultural Studies. 3 credits.
Specialized interdisciplinary topics in cultural theory and analysis. Notes: These courses are designed for the PhD student. Those students not admitted to a PhD program are required to contact the instructor. Topics vary. May be repeated for credit when topic is different.Offered by Cultural Studies. May be repeated within the term.
Specialized Designation: Topic Varies
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program, or permission of the instructor.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate or Non-Degree level students.

Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 862: Critical AI Studies. 3 credits.
This course critically examines artificial intelligence (AI) as a social, cultural, political, technical, and economic phenomenon. Drawing on theories and methodologies from the humanities and social sciences, this course interrogates the historical development of AI, its ideological and political economical underpinnings, and its material, cultural, and ethical consequences. Topics may include things like: surveillance, privacy, and data; fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics (FATE); automation, digital labor, and the gig economy; algorithmic bias, discrimination, and marginalization; environmental and ecological impacts; (mis)representation of identity and embodiment; and AI policy, resistance, and alternative futures. Each iteration of the course will include case studies applying these overarching concerns to specific case studies in contemporary AI applications, like large language models, predictive policing, or disinformation and deepfakes.Offered by Cultural Studies. May not be repeated for credit.
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a doctoral program, or permission of instructor
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy or Graduate.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
CULT 870: Independent Study. 1-3 credits.
Reading and research on a specific topic guided by advisors, supporting the development of a Field Concentration.Offered by Cultural Studies. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 15 credits.
Specialized Designation: Topic Varies
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to a PhD program, successful completion of all core courses, or permission of director.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Research
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Special scale.
CULT 880: Field Concentration. 3 credits.
Intensive research course, resulting in a Field Statement and oral defense. Notes: Requires permission of field advisor.Offered by Cultural Studies. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Specialized Designation: Topic Varies
Recommended Prerequisite: Admission to cultural studies doctoral program, successful completion of core courses, and an additional 18 credits.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Research
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Special scale.

900 Level Courses

CULT 998: Doctoral Dissertation Proposal. 1-6 credits.
Develop research proposal that forms basis for doctoral dissertation. Notes: A maximum of 6 credits may be applied to the degree. Subject to continuous registration requirement. Offered by Cultural Studies. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 24 credits.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy.

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Dissertation
Grading:
This course is graded on the Satisfactory/No Credit scale.
CULT 999: Doctoral Dissertation. 1-12 credits.
Doctoral dissertation research and writing under direction of dissertation committee.Offered by Cultural Studies. May be repeated within the degree.
Recommended Prerequisite: CULT 998.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy.

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Cultural Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

Schedule Type: Dissertation
Grading:
This course is graded on the Satisfactory/No Credit scale.