Keywords

Learning outcomes

The study module gives the students an understanding of culture as a dimension of all human practices. Culture is studied as human action and processes that produce new realities. The module enables the student to analyze local, national and transnational cultural practices in their relations with 'economy' and 'politics' by using concepts of complex whole, articulation and conjuncture.

Contents

The course consists of lectures (5 ETCS) and workshops (5 ETCS). Thematic workshop explore the topic with case studies and literature. Themes of the workshop vary each year. Thematic workshop may include the following topics:

1. Transnational formations

The workshop investigates transnational cultural practices, formations and everyday experiences as well as their political and economic significance. The workshop explores the ways in which the transnational dimension is a part of cultural production and the ways in which transnationalism shapes understandings of culture and society.

Reading materials include:
Vertovec, S. (2008). Transnationalism. London: Routledge.
Bailey, O., Georgiou. M., & Harindranath. R. (Eds.). (2007).Transnational lives and the media: Re-imagining diaspora. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Gillespie, M. (2000).Transnational communications and diaspora communities. In S. Cottle, (Ed.), Ethnic minorities and the media: Changing cultural boundaries (pp. 164-178). Buckingham: Open University Press.
Robins, K. and Aksoy, A. (2003). Banal transnationalism: The difference that television makes. In K. Karim, (Ed.), The media of diaspora (pp. 89-104), London: Routledge.

2. Gender

The workshop focuses on the question of gender in culture. It investigates theorizations of gender from performativity to economics and explores various debates on politics of gender in the field of cultural studies. Theories of representation and identity to politics of recognition are explored and discussed with case studies.

Reading materials include:
Attwood (ed.) (2009) Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture. London & New York: I.B.Tauris.
Benhabib et al (eds.) (1994) Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange.New York: Columbia University Press.
Feasey (2008): Masculinity and popular television. Edinburgh University Press.
MacKinnon (2003): Representing men: maleness and masculinity in the media. Arnold.
McRobbie (2008) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: SAGE.

3. Participation

The workshop examines the concept of participation and discusses it in relation to theorizations of politics, economy and technology to understand what kind of ideas are connected to such notions, e.g. participatory cultures, digital activism and sharing.
Readings include:
Ayers et al. (2003) Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.
Carpentier & De Cleen (eds.) Participation and Media Production. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual Poachers. Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routlegde.
Warner, M. (2002) Publics and Counterpublics. Cambridge: Zone Books.

4. Affective economies

The workshop explores the concept of affective economy. It examines the debates on affective economy that refer on a hand to the ways in which capitalism has entered the domain of intimacy and emotions and on the other hand new forms of value production in digital environment as a result of blurring boundaries of public and private.
The readings include for example:
Muehlebach & Shoshan (2012): Post-Fordist Affect, Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 85, #2, Spring 2012.
Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. New York University Press.
Andrejevic, M. (2011) Infoglut: How Too Much Information Is Changing the Way We Think and Know. New York: Routledge.
Reber, D. (2012) Headless Capitalism: Affect as Free Market Episteme. In differences, Vol. 23, No. 1. (2012), pp. 62-100.
Skeggs, B. (2010) The Value of Relationships: Affective Scenes and Emotional Performances. Feminist Legal Studies 18 (1): 29-51.
Hochschildt, A. (2012) The Outsourced Self. Intimate Life in Market Times. Metropolitan Books.
Hardt & Negri (2000): Empire. Harvard University Press.

Teaching language

Evaluation

Study materials

• Grossberg:  Cultural Studies in the Future Tense. Duke University Press. 2010.

• AND one of the books below:

- Braidotti: Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming. Cambridge: Polity. 2002.
- Ingold: Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. 2000
- Massey: For Space. London: SAGE. 2005.
- Thrift: Non-Representational Theory. Space, Politics, Affect. London: Routledge 2008.

Belongs to following study modules

2018–2019

Teaching

Archived Teaching Schedule. Please refer to current Teaching Shedule.

-