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Dr Jana Melkumova-Reynolds STC S208

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Culture and Society. This course is available on the MA in Modern History. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access). Students who have this course as a core course are guaranteed a place. Other than for students for whom the course is a core course, places are allocated based on a written statement. This may mean that not all students who apply will be able to get a place on this course.

Cultural Theory and Cultural Forms is the core course for the MSc Culture and Society. The aim is to introduce you to a wide range of approaches, debates and issues that loom large in the study of cultural processes. By the end of this course you should have a reasonable map of different aspects and approaches to researching cultural processes; and you should feel able to formulate your own research questions and strategies within the diverse traditions of culture theory and cultural research.

In Term 1 we introduce the diverse approaches to cultural theory and the central debates that have structured the field, with particular attention to the ways in which these link to central sociological themes. The second focuses on approaching these theoretical debates from the vantage of empirical research and a concern with methodologies for studying cultural processes.

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures, online materials and seminars totalling a minimum of 40 hours across MT and LT.

Reading Weeks: Students on this course will have a reading week in MT Week 6 and LT Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

All students are expected to submit one piece of non-assessed written work per term and prepare seminar presentations.

Ahmed, S. 2004. "Affective economies", Social text, 22: 117-139.

Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press.

Ahmed, S. (2010) The Promise of Happiness. Durham: Duke University Press

Appadurai, A. (1990) Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Theory, Culture and Society, Vol 7, 295-310

Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London: Routledge.

Chakrabarti, D. (2000) Provincialising Europe. Princeton University Press

Hall, S. (1992) `New Ethnicities' in Donald, J and Rattansi, A (eds.) (1992) “Race”, Culture, Difference, London: Routledge.

Hayles, N.K. (1999) How We became Posthuman. Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Hennion, A. (2001) Music Lovers: Taste as Performance. Theory, Culture and Society, 18(5): 1-22

Latour, B. (2004) Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?: From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern. Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter 2004), 225–248.

McGuigan, J. (2010) Cultural Analysis. London: Sage.

McRobbie, A. (2005) The Uses of Cultural Studies. London: Sage.

Miller, D. (2008) The comfort of things. Polity, Cambridge.

Muñoz, J. E. (2019) Cruising Utopia, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: NYU Press

Oswell, D. (2006) Culture and Society. London: Sage.

Said, E. (1978) Orientalism. London: Penguin

Essay (50%, 5000 words) in the LT.
Essay (50%, 5000 words) in the ST.

An electronic copy of the assessed essay, to be uploaded to Moodle, no later than 4.00pm on the submission day.

The first essay is due by the second Thursday of Lent Term and the second essay is due by the second Thursday of Summer Term. 

Attendance at all seminars and submission of all set coursework is required.