Use the Tab and Up, Down arrow keys to select menu items.
The course considers the strategic roles that culture can play in influencing political and social change, studying a wide variety of cultural texts and practices.
This course considers the politics of our everyday lives. It focuses on how 'culture' - as a process, as a practice, and as the production of meaning - functions as a battleground in the assignment of and struggle for social power. In particular, we will address and problematise ideas about how culture functions in terms of social ‘control’ and ‘resistance’. We will consider the ways that subjects and subjectivities are produced, how bodies are shaped and controlled through discourse, and how material and cultural resources are assigned.Cultural studies is interdisciplinary in nature, so we will apply theoretical and practical debates to a wide range of contemporary cultural texts and modes, from films, television, museums, music, galleries, new media, performance and visual art to everyday acts of social and political resistance like protest movements or culture jamming. Amongst other examples we will consider youth subculture, the way that everyday spaces 'perform' identity, the potential of advertising for control and resistance, the ways that popular culture can challenge hierarchies of taste and value, the politics of cultural authenticity and preservation, and the relationship between music and political activism. We will also consider the history and origins of some of these forms of cultural activism, including key post-1968 cultural resistance movements such as the Situationist International.While this course is offered by the English department and the Cultural Studies programme, it provides an excellent grounding in a broad range of the sorts of theories that underpin contemporary study in the humanities, and so will be of value to students from a variety of backgrounds. Close attention will be paid to issues such as socio-economic class, gender, sexuality, and race.
By the end of this course you will:have developed a knowledge of the textuality and politicality of cultural forms and practicesunderstand some of the ways that subjects and subjectivities might be constructed, negotiated and contestedbe able to problematise the way that cultural forms and practices have, over time, been assigned meaning and valueunderstand that ‘resistance’, ‘control’, ‘identity’ and ‘authenticity’ are complex and problematic termsbe familiar with some key works of modern critical theory and be able to apply their concepts to a wide range of everyday cultural texts and practices
This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:
Critically competent in a core academic discipline of their award
Students know and can critically evaluate and, where applicable, apply this knowledge to topics/issues within their majoring subject.
Either 15 points of ENGL at 100-level with a B pass, or30 points of ENGL at 100-level, orany 45 points from the Arts Schedule
ENGL232
Erin Harrington
Please note: this course does not have a final exam.
All readings will be provided via Learn. This includes extracts from a variety of theorists and writers, including Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, Angela McRobbie, Mikhail Bakhtin, Tony Bennett, James Clifford, Michel Foucault, Dick Hebdige and Michel de Certeau.(Image: "If graffiti changed anything it would be illegal - Banksy" by duncanc, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. Cropped from original.)
Library portal
Domestic fee $746.00
International fee $3,038.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Humanities .