A Symptomatic Reading of a Cultural Artifact

Essay Assignment: A Symptomatic Reading of a Cultural Artifact

Method of Analysis: Finding ‘The Problematic’:

In this writing assignment you will conduct what Louis Althusser calls a ‘symptomatic reading’ of an artifact of popular culture. As a cultural critic, you are like a doctor who must diagnose an illness based on symptoms that your patient is showing. In this case, your cultural artifact is the patient. Culture or ideology, broadly speaking, is the disease. The artifact shows symptoms of specific ideological formations or cultural trends, which Althusser calls “The Problematic”. The Problematic is defined by Althusser as a set of assumptions, ideological biases, and answers to unasked questions that the artifact provides. Like a disease, the Problematic remains hidden, but produces symptoms that can be observed. In terms of cultural criticism, we are looking at what kind of ‘cultural work’ the artifact performs. However, we are concerned not with just any kind of cultural work, but cultural work that is informed by ideology, and thus hides and manipulates meaning. Just as John Berger puts it, we are not so much concerned with the artifacts themselves, but with how meaning is transmitted through them.

If the language of symptoms is confusing you, think of yourself instead as a detective, like Sherlock Holmes, who must solve a case. The cultural artifact you are analyzing is hiding something from you, but it provides clues that you can gather to infer hidden assumptions, ideologies, biases, and questions within the artifact itself; in summary, the implications of the artifact that have been (either purposefully or unconsciously) obfuscated. Remember, anything that has been produced by human hands carries a cultural trace. No human object exists within a vacuum.

Consider focusing on a specific issue or set of issues, as the various critical theories that we will be looking at in class do. Marxist analysis focuses on how cultural artifacts are symptomatic of economic class. Psychoanalytic criticism focuses on how identity and selfhood is constructed through cultural artifacts and practices. Feminism and critical race theory attempt to uncover the problematic of gender and race that has been built into cultural productions. Utilize the vocabulary of concepts from these critical traditions to articulate your own reading of the symptoms. You may have to read ahead of the class schedule in order to use some of these concepts.

Choosing an artifact of popular culture: Narrow your topic down to one specific artifact (such as a particular song, film or scene from a film, episode of a TV show, a specific advertisement, etc.) or compare two specific artifacts (a medieval painting with an ad, a film version to a novel, etc.). Five pages of writing is not a very long analysis, so topics like ‘rap music’, ‘the bible’, or ‘horror films’ are way too broad.

Basic Guidelines:

FORMAT: You will write a minimum of 5 pages in MLA format. MLA format consists of a certain method of citation, which includes a ‘works cited’ page, and a format consisting of 12pt Times New Roman font, double-spaced pages, 1-inch margins, and your last name and page number in the upper right corner of the header (see the OWL Purdue website in the below resources for more information on MLA).

WRITING PROCESS: You will be graded on the entire process of writing this essay, not only the final draft. The writing process consists of preliminary research that leads up to an outline (or idea map) and a ‘working thesis’. You will then turn in a complete, 5-page rough draft. After receiving feedback from your peers, the mentor, and/or the instructor, you will re-write your essay and turn in a revised draft.

Outline & Working Thesis: Due in mentor session (date TBD)

Rough Draft: Due in mentor session, bring two copies (date TBD)

Revised Draft: Due on the last day of main session.

STYLE: Much of the theoretical basis of your analysis need not be stated explicitly. In fact, do not directly quote Tyson’s book in your writing. Use Wikipedia, encyclopedias, and dictionaries to inform your understanding, but do not cite them in your paper. Finally, you are performing a symptomatic reading of your cultural artifact, but you do not need to state this explicitly, or even use the clinical language of symptom, disease, etc. Instead, show this method through your writing.

Citing resources and avoiding plagiarism: You will find at least one peer-reviewed, academic article from the PSU library databases to inform your reading of the artifact. Depending on what your write about, you may be able to find an article specifically on your topic. If this is not the case, you may have to ‘zoom out’ in your search, and instead search for articles that are more broadly related to your topic. For example, while you may not find anything written about the videogame Farcry 4, you will find thousands of articles written about various genres of video games, or articles written about previous games in the Farcry series that are relevant to your symptomatic reading. As you conduct research make sure to note where you are finding what information so you can properly cite it later. We do this in order to organize the process of our research, and to avoid plagiarizing.

EXAMPLE TITLES AND THESES

You Can(t) Run But You Can(t) Hide: Wearing High-Heels in Horror Films

We are all familiar with the old threat, you can run but you can’t hide. Yet, in classic horror films such as Friday the 13th, or Holloween, the daring escape of women from monsters or murderers is often impeded by the fact that they are wearing high heels. While this might be seen as a cheap way to up the tension in a scary chase scene, it also captures the historical and cultural milieu that produced the notoriously uncomfortable footwear in the first place. High heels, I will argue, effeminize women by making them vulnerable. Paired with the short dresses with which they are often worn, high heels are developed out of a rape culture that makes sure the well-worn platitude remains accurate: as a woman, you can’t run (in those damn shoes).