Below is a tentative course schedule with reading and writing assignments. You should read the sections of the text listed in the schedule and complete any written assignments before the associated class meeting.

Guiding Questions:

• How does Star Wars, explicitly or allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression?
• What does Star Wars reveal about the problematics of post-colonial identity, including the relationship between personal and cultural identity and such issues as double consciousness and hybridity?
• What person(s) or groups does Star Wars identify as “other” or stranger? How are such persons/groups described and treated?
• What does Star Wars reveal about the politics and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance?
• What does Star Wars reveal about the operations of cultural difference––the ways in which race, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and customs intersect to form individual identity–– in shaping our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world in which we live?
• How does Star Wars respond to or comment upon its own characters, themes, or assumptions?
• How does Star Wars, a piece of media in the Western pop-culture canon, reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its representation of colonialization?
• What are the implications of removing Star Wars from its original cultural context, and altering its original presentation (through editing and narrative revisions)?

Tue. 8/29  “You must unlearn what you have learned” (Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back).

Small group rhetorical analysis of Star Wars propaganda posters. While images certainly contain information, they are not primarily conveyers of this inert information. Rather, images are rhetorically purposeful messages aimed at effecting some change in the reader’s view of the subject. As readers become more aware that images are trying to change their views in some way, we can interrogate them more actively, trying to decide what to accept and what to doubt. What do we learn about the Empire or the Rebellion from reading their propaganda posters?

Thurs. 8/31 Noah Mintz, You & Media – (Introducing Media Studies & Media Literacy)[1]

Han Solo: “I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all-powerful force controlling everything. There’s no mystical energy field that controls my destiny” (Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope).
Han Solo: “Hey Luke. May the Force be with you” (Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope).

What is a reader? What are the reader’s responsibilities toward a text? How does the reader honor those responsibilities? Is persuasion possible in the contemporary moment? If so, how? If not, why do we write?

[1] These introductory episodes of Noah’s vlog serve both as an introduction to Media Studies and as an example of the sort of work you might go on to do if you choose to continue working in Media Studies at Vassar. You & Media is Noah’s senior thesis project, fulfilling the requirement for his Media Studies major and Bachelor of Arts degree. To further explore the rapprochement of Postcolonial Studies and Media Studies, see Kai Merten and Lucia Krämer’s (eds.) Post-Colonial Studies Meets Media Studies: A Critical Encounter. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript, 2016.