celebrity culture

Music: The Today Show

A major benefactor is considering throwing the College of Communication more than seven figures of funding to support the development of something called "Entertainment Studies." Some time ago requests for faculty contributions to such a major, track, concentration, "center," and so on were made, specifically in terms of who we might know to bring in for colloquia and what we might teach that fits with an "entertainment studies" rubric.

Obviously a number of my courses—including my rhetoric and popular music and religion classes—could fit here, although I said that I would be willing to develop an undergraduate class titled "celebrity culture." Personally, I enjoy the gossip columns and racy details of celebrity life because of its absurdity, and because the star system has permeated our lives in almost every domain: the sheer ubiquity, for example, of publicizing one's "private sex tape" is case in point (and there is a paper to be written here that argues, again, that the public does not exist). So I think teaching such a class would be fun, and potentially popular, and help introduce students to critical thinking. So this is a win-win-win proposition. Nevertheless, I've been thinking about what the syllabus would look like, insofar as this is an upper-level undergraduate course, scratching my head a bit.

Ok, so I know I'd have to include Walter Benjamin on "Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility," and an essay or two from Adorno. The students will hate those readings, but they really are essential. I would then like to assign something like Jodi Dean's Publicity's Secret, although I think that would be too hard. So I guess what I'm saying is that everything that comes to mind is a bit too challenging for undergraduates. I don't mind challenging them a little—but just not with every reading. Any thoughts out there as to good articles or books on celebrity culture?