Class Details
Gen X: Revisiting the MTV Generation
In this course we will explore the cultural creation of generational divisions and their function while delving specifically into the popular culture surrounding – and created for – Generation X (defined roughly, for our purposes, as those born between 1965 and 1980).
We will discuss creative works and impactful events from the era with a specific focus on the cultural objects created by Gen Xers and those that influenced them as they came of age, as well as current popular culture trends in Gen X nostalgia seen in such texts as Stranger Things and the resurgence of grunge fashion.
We will consider how Generation X is distinguished from its neighboring generations but also interrogate the (frequently racially and socio-economically loaded) stereotypes so often deployed in the shorthand that members of divergent generations use to attempt to understand one another.
The course methodology will be a close reading approach to media analysis with texts that may include but will not be limited to Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994), Generation X: Tales from an Accelerated Culture (Douglas Coupland, 1991), Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991), DIY artifacts such as zines and mixtapes, and news media content from generation-defining events such as the Challenger explosion and the O.J. Simpson trial.
Enrollment
- Enrollment through your home campus; contact your OSLEP campus coordinator for information
- OSLEP provides all required reading materials at no additional cost-NO books to buy!
- Housing and meals provided
- In-person residential seminar
Scholar
Melissa Lenos, Ph.D
University of Pittsburgh
Melissa Lenos is The Senior Director of Graduate Advising and Engagement for the Humanities at the University of Pittsburgh, where she also teaches in the English Department and Film and Media Studies program. She has taught courses on first year writing, popular culture, film history, literature, and writing for media. She is coauthor (with Michael Ryan) of An Introduction to Film Analysis: Technique and Meaning in Narrative Film, in its second edition with Bloomsbury and (with Kevin L. Ferguson) of Generation X: The Popular Culture that Defined the MTV Generation, forthcoming from Bloomsbury. Her co-edited collection (with Anna Froula, Tanya Horeck, and Erin Meyers), Televising True Crime: The True Crime Genre in the Digital Age, is forthcoming from Routledge.
Class Prep