BA in Journalism / Бакалавр в Області Журналістики

Course Details

Course Information Package

Course Unit TitleCULTURAL STUDIES: THE POST MODERN CONDITION
Course Unit CodeAJER300
Course Unit Details
Number of ECTS credits allocated4
Learning Outcomes of the course unitBy the end of the course, the students should be able to:
  1. Interpret historical framework about the major cultural currents which have characterized the experience of modernity [at least in the west] during the past 200 years, and their interrelation with economic and political trends and realities.
  2. Debate over the post modern phenomenon/a and the historical-sociological implications.
  3. Develop critical faculties of analysis and creative involvement/engagement with different types of art [literature, poetry, painting, theatre, cinema], so as to expand their aesthetic explorations and their engagement with the cultural debates about the historical dimension of artistic movements.
  4. Evaluate data and write texts of critical analysis about different types of art, which will be based on a broader theoretical interpretative framework but which will also express a creative engagement with the subject and literary expression itself
  5. Demonstrate awareness of cultural issues, and use relevant sources, to cover creatively and professionally cultural subjects for mass media audiences.
Mode of DeliveryFace-to-face
PrerequisitesNONECo-requisitesNONE
Recommended optional program componentsNONE
Course Contents·  The social-historical construction of the terms “modernity” and “tradition”. The decoding of terms as an [introductory] analytic strategy. Introduction to the requirements of the course: reading/discussing texts, weekly commentary on cultural “events”/”texts”. Contrast of terms associated with modernity-post modernity [reason-relativism, equality-difference, progress-mixing]
·  The “birth” of Modernity: Enlightenment and the French Revolution [Discussion of literary texts]. From Romanticism to Realism – social and aesthetic transformations [Discussion of theatre and/or painting]. The age of the machine: its impact on society, knowledge, politics, everyday life. The blending of rationality and progress
·  Modernist movements: painting, writing, cinema, theatre. Discussion of film and film criticism. Modernism and politics: social revolution and art in the first half of the 20th century. Discussion of film and texts
·  Towards Postmodernity: From the crisis of meaning of the 50’s to the “underground” and the “revolution of everyday life” in the 60’s and 70’s. The politics of difference. The changing conception/definition of art.
·  Decentering the subject, the crisis of master-narratives, and the rise of relativism. Examples from politics and mass culture/ cinema Theory: from Barthes to Derrida
·  The theoretical debate since the early 1980’s: Jameson, Lyotard, Habermas – Foucault. The implications of the post modernity debates on: art, politics, analysis [deconstruction], eroticism, the relation of technology and everyday life. Use this discussion to select area for final essay.
Recommended and/or required reading:
Textbooks
  • Γιώργος Βελτσος, Η διαμάχη: κείμενα για την Νεοτερικότητα, Πλέθρον, Αθήνα, 1990.
  • Walter Benjamin. Δοκίμια για την Τέχνη. Αθήνα. Κάλβος.
  • Χερμπερτ Μαρκουζε. Η τέχνη, μορφή της πραγματικότητας. Αθήνα. Γλαρος.
  • Reader: selected literary, political and analytic texts
References
  • Marshal Berman, All that is solid melts into air, Penguin, London, 1988
  • Thomas Docherty (ed.), Post modernism, a reader, Harvester, Great Britain 1993.
  • Frederick Jameson, Το Μεταμοντέρνο, Νεφέλη, Αθήνα 1999.
  • Donald M. Lowe, History of Bourgois Perception, University of Chicago Press, 1982.
  • Χερμπερτ Ρηντ, Ιστορία της Μοντέρνας Τέχνης, Υποδομή, Αθήνα.
  • Sobchack Thomas, Sobchack Vivian, An Introduction to Film, Little Brown and Company, Boston.
Planned learning activities and teaching methodsThis course is delivered to the students by means of lectures and class discussions.  Lectures are supplemented assignments on specific issues [including visits to galleries and theatres] in order for the students to familiarize themselves with the concepts and their application. The lectures are also supplemented with film screenings which aim to familiarize students with the history of cinema but also acquaint them with film codes which may be used in their own film project. 
Assessment methods and criteria
Assignments20%
Midterm exam20%
Final Exam60%
Language of instructionEnglish
Work placement(s)NO

 Друк  E-mail