Module overview
This module offers an in-depth exploration of three concepts that have shaped the modern world: nation, culture, and power. Drawing on staff expertise in cultural and critical theory, the module will investigate the key questions that worldwide thinkers and activists have asked about the fluid concepts of nation, culture, and power, and the theories they have proposed to understand our place within them. Specific topics might include, for example, cultural identity, patriotism and nationalism, racism and empire, gender and feminist thought, queer identity, disability and political resistance.
Seminars and individual tutorials are centred on locating your own academic interests within these worldwide theories and concepts. In this way, the module provides you with new and exciting ways of approaching your studies, enhancing your research in other modules and in your dissertation. In addition, the module will significantly strengthen your transferable skills of critical thinking, analysis, debate, and communication of complex concepts, which will serve as an ideal foundation for both advanced study and entrance into the workplace.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- manage deadlines and make effective use of your time
- reach an advanced level of global and cultural awareness
- communicate complex, advanced ideas and arguments in an essay format
- engage in advanced debate around complex, high-level ideas and theories
- identify, select and draw upon a wide range of printed and electronic sources
- engage in high-level analysis of texts/case studies and arguments
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- how culture manifests and is disseminated through global exchange and encounter, at an advanced level
- working and thinking globally and across cultures, at an advanced level
- how to engage critically with high-level theoretical scholarship.
- advanced conceptualisations, theories and debates around nationhood, culture, identity, imperialism, colonisation, migration and globalisation
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- interpret and reflect critically, at an advanced level, on a range of global cultural texts and case studies
- evaluate advanced theoretical approaches to nationhood, culture, power and identity
- employ critical and cultural theory in high-level analysis of cultural trends, narratives and texts
- demonstrate confidence and skill when engaging in high-level academic discussion and debate
Syllabus
The module will cover two broad and overlapping thematic areas: Culture and Nation, and Culture and Power.
The precise syllabus will change year-to-year, but the Culture and Nation portion might include, for example, theories and concepts of nationhood, national and cultural identity, nationalism, nation-building, the transnational and culture as a concept.
The Culture and Power portion might include, for example, theories and concepts of race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, disability, socioeconomic class, colonialism and postcoloniality, violence, authoritarianism and resistance.
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Lectures, seminars and individual tutorials, alongside in-depth independent study.
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Seminar | 24 |
| Guided independent study | 126 |
| Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
Journal Articles
Collins, Patricia Hill (1998). It’s all in the family: intersections of gender, race, and nation. Hypatia, 13(3), pp. 62-82.
Textbooks
Longhurst, Brian et al, eds (2008). Introducing Cultural Studies.
Mbembe, Achille (2013). Critique of Black Reason / Critique de la raison nègre.
Hall, Stuart, ed. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices.
Muñoz, José Esteban (2009). Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity.
Williams, Raymond (1989). Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society.
Lemert, Charles et al, eds (2010). Globalization: A Reader.
Paul Gilroy (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness.
Edelman, Lee (2004). No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive.
Samuels, Ellen (2014). Fantasies of Identification: Disability, Gender, Race.
Davis, Angela Y. (1981). Women, Race and Class.
Billig, Michael (1995). Banal Nationalism.
Anderson, Benedict (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
Levitt, Peggy, ed. (2008). The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations.
Cohen, Robin (2001). Global Diasporas: An Introduction.
Couldry, Nick (2000). Inside Culture: Re-imagining the Method of Cultural Studies.
Yuval-Davis, Nira (1997). Gender and Nation.
Cabral, Amílcar (1972). The role of culture in the struggle for independence / O papel da cultura na luta pela independência.
Williams, Patrick and Laura Chrisman, eds (1993). Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader.
Kafer, Alison (2013). Feminist, Queer, Crip.
Hall, JR, et al, eds (2010). Routledge Handbook of Cultural Sociology.
Young, Robert (1981). Untying the Text: A Poststructuralist Reader.
Davis, Lennard J., ed. (2017). The Disability Studies Reader.
McGrew, Tony, Stuart Hall and David Held, eds (1992). Modernity and its Futures: Understanding Modern Societies.
Assessment
Formative
This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.
Coursework plan
- Assessment Type: Formative
- Feedback: Appropriate feedback will be provided.
- Final Assessment: No
- Group Work: No
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Essay | 100% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Essay | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External