Soap Opera Culture - TV Serials from the Global South and East from an Anthropological Perspective
Instructor: Dr. Markus Schleiter
Soap operas have received great attention regarding their effect – as mass media or as part of fan culture – on the everyday lives of their audiences. For example, in the 1980s the promotion of a pan-Indian Hindu nationalism caused by the TV serial ”Ramayana” from India was under heavy debate. Whereas at the same time the globally successful TV-serial ”Dallas” was – according to the public European opinion – inciting an Americanization of culture and stimulating consumer culture worldwide.
In Media Anthropology a major part of empirical research on serials focus on the interconnection between media and culture. The various everyday practices of watching TV serials and relating to the plot, characters or issues are at the center of such approaches. For example, by watching ”Ramayana” Hindu believers offer incense sticks as part of their worship to the on-screen gods and receive darshan (”gaze of god”) - just as they would do off-screen. Vice versa, young women discuss their concerns regarding the suffering of this serial’s female main protagonist Sita in an opposition to a canonical reception of the story – namely blaming their husbands and the Indian god Ram to disregard women’s position in society.
Recently, the question if an increase of streaming online triggers a higher demand of serials of diverse origin and content has become an interest of research. It challenges the idea of cosmopolitan identification besides one’s region or nation. Centers of serial production in the global South and East stand at the forefront of this attention, as these new sites have reached significance in creating content for regional and global audiences.
The course focusses on serial production and consumption from South Asia and takes a comparative perspective on the role of newer serial production sites of the Global South – such as East Asia, the Middle East, Southern Africa and South America – in triggering cultural identifications. We will discuss and evaluate key readings from Media Anthropology as well as ethnographic studies on serial consumption and production in weekly video sessions, and watch audio-visual serial examples together. Students – individually or in a team – are required to analyze an episode of a serial, an ethnographic case study or a theoretical approach and present their findings to fellow students during an online session or via a pre-recorded video presentation.
Please register as early as possible, no later than 13th April, with the Learnweb-course of this seminar. You receive the password by sending an email to me: schleiter@uni-muenster.de. Regular video sessions oft the course start from Tuesday 21th April 2020 14:00 ct.
Course Work:
- Close reading of the weekly key text.
- Three comparative essays on the readings (2 pages); to be submitted before the respective session.
- Submission of a summary of one of the seminar sessions.
- Weekly e-learning assignments (2 pages) – to be introduced later on during the course.
- Individually or in small teams: presentation of an analysis (15 min.) of a TV-serial or an ethnographic case study on consumption/ production contexts or a theoretical approach; or of two responses to the readings (5-10 min. each). Alternatively, students may present an analysis of a serial (10 min) and moderate a discussion (15 min) at a screening event (in form of a video session).
Recommended Literature:
Ang, Ien [1982] 1985. Watching Dallas: soap opera and the melodramatic imagination. London: Routledge.
Ginsburg, Faye D.; Lila Abu-Lughod und Brian Larkin 2002. Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jirattikorn, Amporn 2008. 'Pirated' transnational broadcasting: the consumption of Thai soap operas among Shan communities in Burma. Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 21 (1): 30-62.
Jung, Sun 2011. Korean masculinities and transcultural consumption: Yonsama, Rain, Oldboy, K-pop idols. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Mankekar, Purmina 1999. Screening culture, viewing politics: an ethnography of television, womanhood, and nation in postcolonial India. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rios, Diana I. und Mari Castaneda 2011. Soap operas and telenovelas in the digital age: global industries and new audiences. New York: Peter Lang. |
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