Week Two (June 1) - The Frankfurt School

Readings for today

• Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, "The Culture Industry," from ed. Simon During, The Cultural Studies Reader, Third Edition (Routledge: 2007).
• Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproduction," from ed. Simon During, The Cultural Studies Reader, Third Edition (Routledge: 2007).  
• "Frankfurt School" in John Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction.  NOTE: You can access a PDF copy of the entire book (Cultural Theory and Popular Culture) HERE.
• FIRST RESPONSE PAPER DUE TODAY! (on any of the readings thus far)

Reading Questions & Guides:

• Questions: Horkheimer & Adorno, Benjamin, Frank (NOTE: ignore the ones on Frank)
• Guide: Horkheimer & Adorno on the 'culture industry'. 
• Guide: A quick overview on Adorno. 
• Guide: The Culture Industry: a slide lecture (open w/ Internet Explorer) by Prof. Warner at UC Santa Barbara. 
• Guide: Introduction to Walter Benjamin: a slide lecture (open w/ Internet Explorer) by Prof. Warner at UC Santa Barbara.

For further reading/research:

• Professor Ron Strickland's lecture on Frankfurt School Critical Theory, from his online course in Literary and Cultural Studies (YouTube video).
• David Barsamian, "Public Relations, Corporate Spin and Propaganda: An interview with Stuart Ewen," Z Magazine, May 2000.
• Thomas Frank, "Why Johnny Can't Dissent," from Commodify Your Dissent. 
• Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, Translated by Ken Knabb, London: Rebel Press, 2004 (Originally published as La Société du Spectacle in 1967). 
• Stuart Ewen, "The Unseen Engineers: Biography of an Idea," from PR! A Social History of Spin. pp. 146-173.
• Theodor W. Adorno, "Culture Industry Reconsidered," New German Critique, No. 6 (Autumn, 1975), pp. 12-19. 
• Adam Curtis' The Century of the Self 
• Douglas Kellner, "The Frankfurt School Revisited: A Critique of Martin Jay's The Dialectical Imagination," New German Critique, No. 4, Winter 1975, pp. 131-152. 
• Angela McRobbie, “The Passagenwerk and the Place of Walter Benjamin in Cultural Studies: Benjamin, Cultural Studies, Marxist Theories of Art,” Cultural Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, May 1992, pp. 147-169. 
• Naomi Klein, "Alt.Everything," from No Logo, Picador: 2000, pp. 63-85 (Chapter 3). 
• Jon Goss, "Geographies of Consumption: The Work of Consumption," Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2006; pp. 237-249.