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:
- engage in advanced debate around complex, high-level ideas and theories
- manage deadlines and make effective use of your time
- identify, select and draw upon a wide range of printed and electronic sources
- reach an advanced level of global and cultural awareness
- engage in high-level analysis of texts/case studies and arguments
- communicate complex, advanced ideas and arguments in an essay format
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- employ critical and cultural theory in high-level analysis of cultural trends, narratives and texts
- interpret and reflect critically, at an advanced level, on a range of global cultural texts and case studies
- demonstrate confidence and skill when engaging in high-level academic discussion and debate
- evaluate advanced theoretical approaches to nationhood, culture, power and identity
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- advanced conceptualisations, theories and debates around nationhood, culture, identity, imperialism, colonisation, migration and globalisation
- working and thinking globally and across cultures, at an advanced level
- how to engage critically with high-level theoretical scholarship.
- how culture manifests and is disseminated through global exchange and encounter, at an advanced level
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
Mbembe, Achille (2013). Critique of Black Reason / Critique de la raison nègre.
Hall, Stuart, ed. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices.
Hall, JR, et al, eds (2010). Routledge Handbook of Cultural Sociology.
Williams, Raymond (1989). Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society.
McGrew, Tony, Stuart Hall and David Held, eds (1992). Modernity and its Futures: Understanding Modern Societies.
Levitt, Peggy, ed. (2008). The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations.
Williams, Patrick and Laura Chrisman, eds (1993). Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader.
Couldry, Nick (2000). Inside Culture: Re-imagining the Method of Cultural Studies.
Davis, Angela Y. (1981). Women, Race and Class.
Lemert, Charles et al, eds (2010). Globalization: A Reader.
Muñoz, José Esteban (2009). Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity.
Cohen, Robin (2001). Global Diasporas: An Introduction.
Anderson, Benedict (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
Billig, Michael (1995). Banal Nationalism.
Yuval-Davis, Nira (1997). Gender and Nation.
Davis, Lennard J., ed. (2017). The Disability Studies Reader.
Edelman, Lee (2004). No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive.
Kafer, Alison (2013). Feminist, Queer, Crip.
Samuels, Ellen (2014). Fantasies of Identification: Disability, Gender, Race.
Young, Robert (1981). Untying the Text: A Poststructuralist Reader.
Cabral, Amílcar (1972). The role of culture in the struggle for independence / O papel da cultura na luta pela independência.
Longhurst, Brian et al, eds (2008). Introducing Cultural Studies.
Paul Gilroy (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness.
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