CAT 2

CAT 2 courses (six units, winter quarter) are writing-intensive, foregrounding argumentation, revision, and writing as process by examining case studies of culture, art, and technology interacting in the present moment. Students must have passed CAT 1 in order to enroll in CAT 2.

Winter 2026

CAT 2: Now and Then: Revisiting 1990s Popular Culture and its 21st Century Return

Phoebe Bronstein

Associate Teaching Professor, CAT

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11:00-11:50 a.m.

From the contemporary rise of flannel to return of bootcut jeans and teenage luddite clubs, 1990s fashion and television reboots abound. This CAT 2 course will take a cultural studies approach to the decade of the 1990s to explore the formative and massive technological, political, and mass media shifts and trends that have shaped contemporary American culture and consider our contemporary nostalgia for those same trends. Bookended by the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall and Y2K and then 9/11, in this decade, landlines gave way to cell phones and the internet went from the dulcet tones of dial up to DSL.The 1990s were the decade of the East Coast/West Coast hip-hop rivalry, the rise of Nirvana and Seattle grunge, the star-making Titanic, TGIF on TV, the OJ live chase and trial, and some of the first mentions of climate change (then called global warming). Using popular media (music, film, television, press), this course will explore the artistic, technological, and political shifts of the 1990s, with particular attention to thinking through our contemporary culture and examining our current nostalgia for the 1990s. Assignments will focus on developing critical reading skills, reflection, and responding to the texts we read, watch, and listen to.

CAT 2: Musicking, Liveness, and Mediation

Joe Bigham

Lecturer, CAT

Tuesday/Thursday 9:30-10:50 a.m.

An unplanned moment at an awards show goes viral, replaying countless times on social media. Thousands of fans become transfixed by LED screens broadcasting the athletic moves of a dancer on the nearby stage. The COVID pandemic and global shutdown of 2020 thrust millions of people into Zoom rooms, all yearning for immediate social contact. In each case, the core human experience of being in others' presence is met with technological mediation. Theater scholar Philip Auslander coined the term "liveness" as both this presence and mediation combined: we only understand "liveness" in relation to technologies like film, cassette tapes, DVDs, and streaming media. In this course, we'll consider the facets of his argument and other scholarly theories offering alternative and opposing perspectives. Juxtaposing these ideas, we will analyze a mediated event as it occurs "live": the NFL Superbowl Halftime Show. More broadly, we will study scholarly writing about authenticity in popular music, technologies transforming social relationships, and the construction of personal meaning from recorded music.

Our primary goal in this class is developing scholarly argumentation through synthesizing sources and a structured writing process. No musical training is needed to engage with course materials. Your ability to thoughtfully consider multiple arguments and present your own perspective about real experiences are required.

CAT 2: Uses of Darkness: Millennial Gothic and its Contemporary Legacy

Liz Popko

Assistant Teaching Professor, CAT

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9:00-9:50 a.m.

In 1974, British author Angela Carter claimed "We live in gothic times." Carter, known for her dark and fantastic reimaginings of fairytales, was likely referencing the high cultural anxieties of the western world that pervaded the late twentieth century: energy crises, wars and revolutions in the Middle East, a sense of radical shifts in social values and power. To say that we, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, remain in "gothic times" would be a vast understatement. The turn of the millennium has brought endless wars, financial crises, polarizing politics, a global pandemic, and technology-induced existential dread. Consider that in 2008, the Oxford English Dictionary added a new definition to the term "dumpster fire": "figurative. A chaotic or disastrously mishandled situation; an embarrassing spectacle; a debacle, a shambles, a mess." These are definitely, gothic times. We need only turn to our screens to witness terrible violence, exploitation, amorality, and other general unpleasantness. Why would we turn to fiction for the same? And yet, since 2019, the publication of horror fiction and film has nearly doubled, according to Publisher's Weekly.

This CAT 2 course seeks to answer the question: "What is the purpose of art that presents us with the same horror that we already see in the real world?" What explains the popularity of contemporary horror writers such as Stephen Graham Jones or Silvia Moreno-Garcia or the recent acclaim of Ryan Coogler's Sinners and Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein? Throughout this course, you will develop your ability to analyze and synthesize complex ideas related to fiction and fear. You will compose your own original arguments about the social/cultural/personal uses (or failures) of dark literature in the twenty-first century. And hopefully, you will develop a greater appreciation for the ways in which literary art—in a variety of forms—plays a very real role in daily life, no matter how horrific.

CAT 2: Art and the Brain

Pinar Yoldas

Associate Professor, Literature

Tuesday/Thursday 11:00 a.m.-12:20 p.m.

This CAT 2 course delves into the fascinating world of the brain and its scientific study, known as neuroscience. This field stands at the forefront of biological sciences, driven by groundbreaking initiatives like the White House BRAIN Initiative and the comprehensive Allen Brain Atlas. The explosive growth of neuroscience has given rise to diverse and intriguing subfields over the past decade, including neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, and neuroaesthetics.

In this course, we will explore the intriguing intersection of neuroscience and art. Our focus will be on examining how art is processed and represented in the brain. Through this lens, we will investigate key concepts such as sensation, perception, emotion, memory, creativity, and movement. Our primary objective is to provide a unique scientific perspective on the understanding of art. This exploration promises to enrich our appreciation of art and deepen our understanding of the human brain's capabilities. Join us on this intellectual adventure as we unravel the mysteries of the brain and its relationship with the world of art.

Note that there is no art without the brain, and there is no writing without a topic. The course material is designed to promote academic thinking. While we encourage you to learn about your brain in relation to art, the emphasis of your writing should not be on how much information you've retained from lectures and readings. Instead, it should serve as a conduit for good writing inspired by an exciting topic. This approach aims to foster creativity and critical thinking, enabling you to express your understanding and insights in a thoughtful and articulate manner.