Abstract
Abstract:
This paper examines the role of Cultural Studies in addressing the limitations of American visual culture through pedagogical interventions at Rochester Institute of Technology. Ray argues that despite globalization's potential to enhance international understanding, American visual media remains largely ethnocentric and resistant to representing the complex realities of global interconnectedness. Using the recent Iraq War as an example, he demonstrates how media coverage systematically obscured cultural, historical, and linguistic contexts while promoting martial nationalism. The author proposes using popular animated television programs like The Simpsons and South Park as pedagogical tools to expose the contradictory nature of contemporary media production. These programs offer satirical critiques of American politics and society while being produced by conservative media conglomerates like Fox and Viacom that simultaneously disseminate right-wing news coverage. Ray's course design reveals how progressive political commentary is relegated to fictional entertainment while "reality" is presented through conservative journalistic frameworks. This segregation creates what he terms "political containment," where critical energies are channeled into sardonic laughter rather than genuine political engagement. Through materialist analysis rooted in Birmingham School Cultural Studies methodology, students learn to examine cultural production within broader networks of politics, economics, and material power, ultimately developing critical faculties to understand how visual culture both reveals and conceals the structural realities of American hegemony.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Date
2005
Document Type
Article
Department, Program, or Center
English, Department of
College
College of Liberal Arts
Recommended Citation
Ray, Amit. “Cultural Studies at R.I.T./U.S.A: Of Visual Culture and Pedagogical Interventions.” International Journal of the Humanities, edited by Tom Nairn and Mary Kalantzis, vol. 1, 2003, pp. 1789–94.
Campus
RIT – Main Campus
Included in
American Popular Culture Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Television Commons, Visual Studies Commons
