Sign of the times! Gloednieuw vak op de universiteit: porno

"It's official: I will teach a #pornstudies class at @FU_Berlin this fall! I can't wait to meet new students with new ideas & introduce them to the wondrous world of porn
thanks for having me, @jfkinstitutefub."

"“Pornography is emphatically part of American culture,” claims Linda Williams, US film scholar and founding mother of the field of Porn Studies. Indeed, there is no other country that produces and consumes as much pornographic material as the United States. At the same time, however, America has a troubled history with porn, full of obscenity trials, censorship movements, and moral panics. In this class, we will explore this complicated love-hate-relationship torn between Puritanism on the one, and freedom of speech on the other hand. In so doing, our aim is to move beyond a moral judgment of pornography and towards a better analytical understanding of its history, aesthetics, production, consumption, and cultural function.

Through critical readings and selected scenes, we will go back to the “Golden Age of Porn” in the 1970s and then follow porn’s evolution, as a medium and as an industry, into the digital age. To connect with the contemporary local and international porn scene and – literally – move beyond the ivory tower, we will visit events at the PorYes Feminist Porn Award and the Berlin Pornfilmfestival. A note on content: please be aware that we will look at sexually explicit material. If you think you are unable to engage with such media in a respectful and scholarly manner, this is not the right course for you."