Culture Theories

Recommended Prerequisites

Students should be proficient in English at least at B2 level.

Teaching Methods

Classes will be held in the form of seminars, lacking neither an exposition component nor the providing of syntheses; they will be based in a group of tasks previously distributed amongst students concerning selected texts and the arrangement of work and discussion groups.

Assessment will be continuous and shall have as its fundamental element a paper on a discussed theme chosen by the students.

Learning Outcomes

The curricular unit aims at an enlargement of the theoretical horizon of the students and the acquisition of a better capacity of problematization of cultural theories, as a foundation for the construction of a conceptual map that may provide a framework for research to be carried out. The student should master the complexity of the central concepts, be able to read and discuss in a knowledgeable way and with enough control of the references involved central texts of the contemporary debate and should have acquired enough competence to be able to problematize different approaches to cultural history.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Based on a preliminary reflection on the concept of culture in its many implications and declinations, the course will approach a set of notions which are relevant for the problematization of that concept under a contemporary perspective – such as, among others, the notions of language, identity, nation, memory, multiculturalism,

interculturality, diaspora, globalization, translation, post-colonialism. This will build the foundation for a discussion of aspects of the history of culture and, simultaneously, it will offer theoretical tools for a contextual understanding of cultural practices from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. At the same time, the seminar will consolidate the students' familiarity with some of the main theoreticians of culture in the 20^th century.

Head Lecturer(s)

António Joaquim Coelho de Sousa Ribeiro

Assessment Methods

Continuous Assessment
Other: 20.0%
Research work: 80.0%

Bibliography

Bachmann-Medick, D. (Org.) (2014). The Trans/National Study of Culture. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter.

Bennett, T. et al. (Orgs.) (2005). New keywords: a revised vocabulary of culture and society. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Bennett, T. & Frow, J. (Orgs.) (2008). The Sage handbook of cultural analysis. Los Angeles: Sage.

Eagleton, T. (2000). The Idea of Culture. London: Blackwell.

Edwards, T. (Org.) (2007). Cultural Theory: Classical and Contemporary Positions. London: Sage.

Milner, A. (2007) Contemporary Cultural Theory: An Introduction. 3 edn. London: Taylor & Francis.

Ryan, M. et al. (Orgs.) (2011). The encyclopedia of literary and cultural theory. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Sassoon, D. (2006). The Culture of the Europeans from 1800 to the Present. London: HarperCollins.

Tumino, S. (2011). Cultural theory after the contemporary. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Williams, Raymond (1976). Keywords. A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana.