Module overview
How will the arts get working again after Covid-19? This is a critically important question for everyone who cares about them, artists and audiences alike. If you’re a student considering a career in the arts you’ll want to know where fresh opportunities are likely to open up and where perhaps they won’t. Will things return to “normal”, or are we living through a revolution from which there is no going back?
This module will run in a new way in 2020/21. Aims and learning outcomes haven’t changed hugely but the arts landscape definitely has. Key concepts in cultural economics will be introduced to you. You’ll discover their explanatory power and use them (cautiously!) to predict the future. As in previous years you will engage with art – live where possible, now also online – and you’ll review a selection of “real” and virtual arts events. Alongside lectures you’ll watch a series of specially-produced video conversations with artists and programmers who work in music, theatre and the visual arts – sharing their knowledge and passion, hopes and sometimes fears. We’ll keep government policy under close review and see what difference policy interventions make if and when they happen. You’ll get seminar support either face-to-face or online, and the usual opportunities to discuss your written work with the module co-ordinator before handing it it.
You’ll meet colleagues from the John Hansard Gallery and Turner Sims concert hall (both venues run by the University of Southampton and supported by Arts Council England): you’ll learn how they put programmes together, how they collaborate with other promoters nationally and internationally, how they reach out to audiences, and how you can get involved with the work they do.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- write insightful reviews of arts events
- make well informed choices about your future attendance at arts events
- make realistic suggestions for future arts programming in and beyond Southampton
- demonstrate critical understanding of a range of professional arts practices
- help to generate audiences for arts events
- make connections between academic theory and current professional practice in the areas of arts management and cultural policy
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- debate issues
- evaluate different sorts of evidence
- gather and analyse information
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- manage your time effectively
- influence other people’s thinking [about the arts], and influence the way they choose to spend some of their leisure time
- complete structured writing of assignments
- engage in constructive critical debate with others
- communicate in writing
Syllabus
Theory. The module provides a non-technical introduction to some of the key ideas in cultural economics. We will read Howard Becker (1982) and Richard E. Caves (2000) together– two classics – and explore Pierre Bourdieu’s highly influential thinking around the sociology of culture.
Practice. You will be expected to watch a series of specially-produced video conversations with artists and programmers who work in music, theatre and the visual arts. Arts experts share their knowledge: these conversations will be rich in information. You should make notes and do follow-up research in private study time.
Critical engagement. You will read a selection of professionally-written arts reviews and work to develop a critical vocabulary of your own, using it to describe and evaluate a selection of arts events, live and/or online. Where possible you will have the opportunity to attend events at the University’s John Hansard Gallery and/or Turner Sims concert hall. You will also explore the many cultural events now available online.
Political debate. Issues of inequality in the UK’s arts and cultural sector will be discussed in some of the video conversations. There will be preparatory and follow-up readings.
The present emergency. The impact of Covid-19 on arts organisations, on individual artists and on audiences is sure to be a running theme in the video conversations. UK government interventions designed to help artists through the crisis will be discussed as and when they happen.
Throughout the module you’ll get seminar support either face-to-face or online. You will have opportunities to discuss your written work with the module co-ordinator before handing it it.
Near the end of the semester you will submit a portfolio of written work for formal assessment. This should contain three or four reviews of arts events with which you have engaged (2,000-2,500 words, taken together), and one essay on an arts management or policy topic chosen from a list supplied (2,000-2,500 words).
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching will comprise a mix of delivery methods, such as lectures, seminars, workshops, individual tutorials We are aiming to deliver a significant amount of your teaching face to face, blended with online learning, unless circumstances dictate otherwise. In which case the delivery could comprise an increased element of online learning, or move to entirely online if face to face teaching is not possible or advisable.
In addition, teaching methods include specially produced video conversations with arts managers and other protagonists of the world of the arts.
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Tutorial | 2 |
| Seminar | 12 |
| Wider reading or practice | 52 |
| Lecture | 12 |
| Completion of assessment task | 60 |
| Preparation for scheduled sessions | 12 |
| Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
Abbing, Hans (2002). Why are artists poor? The exceptional economy of the arts. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Towse, Ruth (ed.) (2013). A handbook of cultural economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Colbert, François et al. (2009). Marketing culture and the arts. Montréal: Presses HEG.
Seabrook, John (2000). Nobrow: the culture of marketing, the marketing of culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Mokwa, Michael P., Dawson, William M. and Prieve, E. Arthur (eds) (1980). Marketing the arts. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Alexander, Victoria D. (2003). Sociology of the arts: exploring fine and popular forms. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
English, James F. (2005). The economy of prestige: prizes, awards, and the circulation of cultural value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Frey, Bruno (2000). Arts & economics: analysis and cultural policy. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Abbing, Hans (2006). From high art to new art. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Becker, Howard S. (1982). Art worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Caves, Richard E. (2000). Creative industries: contracts between art and commerce. Cambridge, MA: : Harvard University Press.
Assessment
Summative
Summative assessment description
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Essay | 50% |
| Event reviews | 50% |
Referral
Referral assessment description
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Written assignment | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External