PMA 3511

Media in Transit

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2016-2017 Catalog.

Media make things move. Ships transport goods, cars carry passengers, devices transmit information. While origins and destinations often seem the most significant, modern media and cultural mobility also invite us to consider the experience of being in transit, of what happens as things move from point A to point B. This course examines the function of media in processes of mobilization and immobilization through readings in travel writing and cultural theory (e.g., Goethe, Kafka, Seghers, Simmel, Benjamin, Kracauer). Our guiding questions will include: What kinds of situations tend to create mobility or immobility? To what extent do technologies like the telegraph, telephone, and radio contribute to increased mobility and global connections? And what might studying the experience of mobility and transition reveal about the project of modernity itself?

Distribution Category (CA-AS)

When Offered Fall.

Breadth Requirement (HB)

Comments Taught in English.

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