| School of Humanities | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MDS-20019 | Analysing Culture | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Co-ordinator: | Dr Mark Featherstone Room: CBC0.014, Tel:34179 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teaching Team: | Dr Andy Zieleniec, Mrs Victoria Norman, Miss Jo-Anne Watts, Miss Claire Lewendon, Miss Natalie Soleiman | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture Time: | See Timetable... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Level: | 2 | Credits: | 15 | Study Hours: | 150 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| School Office: | Tel: 01782 733147 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Programme/Approved Electives for |
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| American Studies
Dual Honours (Level 2) American Studies Minor (Level 2) American Studies Single Honours (Level 2) Sociology Dual Honours (Level 2) Sociology Major (Level 2) Sociology Minor (Level 2) Sociology Single Honours (Level 2) |
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| Available as a Free Standing Elective |
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| Yes |
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| Barred Combinations |
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| None
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| Prerequisites |
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| Completion of level 1 MCC core Mediated World or level 1 Sociology core.
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Description In Analysing Culture we consider how culture enables people to make sense of their personal and social lives. The first session of the course refers to Geertz&©s classic paper on Balinese society to introduce the concept of culture. The key question we want to ask through our study of Geertz essay is $ùwhat is culture?&© Following this example of an anthropologically strange culture we move on to think about the construction of national identity through a consideration of Hall&©s work on western identity, Said&©s essay on orientalism, Anderson&©s notion of imaginary communities, and various representations of contemporary nationality. Although the nation has provided a strong cultural map for people since the middle of the 17th century, the rise of modern urbanism has challenged this cultural form through its embrace of privacy and a culture of alienation. In week 3 we consider urban culture, read Simmel&©s classic essay on the metropolitan mind, and think about the ways in which the city is represented today. In the next session we show how people have sought to relate culture to the problem of alienation in modern culture. In week 4 we think about the notion of consumer culture through Adorno and Horkheimer&©s idea of mass culture and Klein's theory of branding and consider how commodities might work like narcotics that numb our senses to the impoverished reality of our one-dimensional society. Our key cultural texts here is Danny Boyle&©s film Trainspotting. In the second part of the course we begin by thinking about cultural politics. In week 5 we focus on Bourdieu&©s idea of distinction and think about how far his theory reflects popular uses of culture in the contemporary world. For Bourdieu culture is not simply a form of deception, but rather a tool that people use in order to try to distinguish themselves from other people in the endless struggle that is competitive capitalism. Although Bourdieu suggests that people use culture for their own purposes, he thinks that they use it unimaginatively and strictly within the confines of capitalist ideology. Thus we may say that Bourdieu is essentially a Marxist. In week 6 we try to extend the Marxist theory of culture through an exploration of the works on the key writers on everyday life. In particular we refer to the idea of contested culture expressed in the works of the French theorists of constructed space and everyday life, Lefebvre and de Certeau. The purpose of this exercise is to suggest that culture may be a space of negotiation, contestation, and confrontation, rather than simply a mechanism of deception or distinction. In week 7 we extend our exploration of this idea of cultural resistance through a discussion of the theory of sub-culture. This theory shows how new communities are able to emerge through consumer relations and cultural performance. We address this theory through a consideration of the classic example of punk, the more contemporary case of gangsta rap, and a reading of the works of the cultural sociologists of performance, Goffman, Garfinkel, and Mead. In the final three weeks of the course we move on to focus on theories of post-modernism, the culturally constructed body, and globalisation. In week 8 we explore the idea of post-modern culture through Dominic Strinati&©s essay on the topic, David Lynch&©s cinema, and Fredric Jameson&©s influential paper, Post-modernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. For Jameson culture is the dominant form of identification in post-modern society. He thinks that people no longer worry about economics or politics, but rather understand these categories through culture. What does this mean? We will try to find out week 10 when we consider the ideas of global culture and anti-capitalism. But before we consider global culture, we examine the post-modern concern for the body and in particular Bordo's theory of the economic body. In week 9 we approach Bordo's theory through a cultural history of thinking about and imaging the body, taking in the Greek God body, the modern super-hero body, and the post-modern techno body, represented by both Haraway's cyborg, Bordo's metabolic body, and various science fiction bodies. Our study of the body, and body image, allows us to think about the ways that politics and economics are subsumed in culture in global society. Shifting from a study of the microcosm of the body to the macrocosm of the globalised world, in week 10 we refer to the works of contemporary writers, such as Giddens and Beck, who dispute the claims of the conflict theorists, such as Adorno and Horkheimer, by arguing that there is no monolithic centre of power that imposes meaning upon people&©s lives in global society. Rather Giddens and Beck argue that contemporary culture is characterised by risk, chance, and freedom of choice. In this session we think about their suggestion that traditional power structures no longer hold in post-modern / global society through an exploration of the idea of the new social movement and in particular anti-capitalist cultural politics. Our core text for this session is the recent film, Fight Club, which connects visions of the body and globalised consumer capitalism to issues of revolutionary cultural politics. |
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| Aims |
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| To assist students to think critically about ideas, processes, and institutions involved in the production of culture. To give students an awareness of the various methodological approaches to the study of culture and the ability to make use to these approaches in their own work. To encourage the development of a range of transferable skills that will be of use to them and their employers in their future careers. To give students the opportunity to reflect on their learning and make use of constructive feedback from their teachers. |
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| Intended Learning Outcomes |
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| explain culture as a theoretical concept. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2 describe key concepts in the study of culture and be able to distinguish between the major theoretical approaches to the study of culture. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2 employ analytical skills and the ability to make independent judgments about the strengths and weaknesses of theories of culture. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2 formulate theoretically informed questions about the cultural world. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2 have had the opportunity to develop skills of exposition and scholarly discussion and to have these evaluated by tutors. will be achieved by assessments: 1, 2 |
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| Study hours |
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| 20 hours contact time (10 lectures and 10 tutorials) 30 hours lecture preparation 30 hours tutorial preparation 70 hours assessment preparation and completion |
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| Description of Module Assessment |
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| 01: Essay weighted 100% (min pass mark of 40) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Extended Essay, 3500 words Students can either choose an essay title from a list provided by the module leader or negotiate a title of their own choosing. |
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| 02: Portfolio (must pass this element) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The portfolio exercise comprises a series of formative exercises the students must complete in order to pass The portfolio comprises 5 of 10 tutorial exercises. Tutorial exercises / portfolio documents include: 1. What is Culture? (tutorial write-up). 2. Nation-Making (a representation of national identity and short explanation of one page). 3. City Cultures (a 500 word review of a core reading). 4. Consumer Cultures (tutorial write-up). 5. Cultural Capital (a representation of class identity and short explanation of one page). 6. Ethnomethodology (report of ethno experiment). 7. Subcultures (report on class interviews). 8. Post-modernism 1 (a series of short answers to tutorial questions). 9. Post-modernism 2 (a short analysis of a representation of the body from a mass media source). 10. Global Cultures (a review of a film shown in tutorials). Students should hand in the portfolio (5 of the above exercises) at the end of the module in order to qualify to pass the module. The objective of this exercise is to ensure engagement in tutorials and provide students with continuous formative assessment as they prepare for the summative assessment. |
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| Version: (1.06B) Updated: 03/Mar/2013
This document is the definitive current source of information about this module and supersedes any other information. |
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