{"id":1586,"date":"2015-10-08T22:15:30","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T22:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2022-01-14T12:30:18","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T12:30:18","slug":"introduction-to-cultural-studies-culture-technology-power-free-course-at-open-school-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/?p=1586","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to Cultural Studies: Culture, Technology & Power Free Course at Open School East"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction to Cultural Studies: Culture, Technology & Power – Free Course at Open School East<\/a><\/p>\n

Taking place over 9\u00a0Tuesdays, 6.30-8.30pm (check schedule below for exact dates)<\/p>\n

Click HERE<\/a> for location
\n29 September \u2013 15\u00a0December 2015<\/p>\n

Who has power in our cultures and how does it work? How do the ideas we have about what is \u2018normal\u2019 or \u2018natural\u2019 influence our decisions? What exactly\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>technology and how does it affect social change? Cultural Studies makes use of techniques from philosophy, history, sociology, human geography, anthropology and political and critical theory to examine these questions in the context of contemporary popular cultures.<\/p>\n

This course is an introduction to the subject taught by senior academics moonlighting from their day jobs at the University of East London. The course is free because we believe not only that education should be free but that knowledge is a crucial weapon in the war against all forms of inequality.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never been to university, have been but miss the critical debates or are curious about who decides what counts as knowledge in the first place, we\u2019d like to meet you.<\/p>\n

There is no set reading (although we\u2019ll recommend some if you\u2019re interested) and no essay assignments, exams or deadlines (although we\u2019ll set some if you want to challenge yourself). All the classes are interactive and give you the chance to think about everyday life in the context of the history of ideas. We\u2019ll provide the learning environment. The rest is up to you.<\/p>\n

The course is written and delivered by Dr Debra Benita Shaw and Dr Stephen Maddison,\u00a0Co-Directors of the Centre for Cultural Studies Research<\/span>. For more information on the Centre and the University of East London click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Course outline<\/h4>\n

Session 1:\u00a0Tuesday\u00a029 September
\n\u2018Making Meaning: Introduction to Semiotics\u2019<\/p>\n

We make meaning from everything we see around us every day, but what informs our decisions about what \u2018things\u2019 mean? This session will introduce you to the work of the French Philologist Ferdinand de Saussure who gave us the tools to understand the role of ideology in how we make sense of everyday life.<\/p>\n

Session 2:\u00a0Tuesday 13 October
\n\u2018Workers of the World Unite: Marx for Beginners\u2019<\/p>\n

Karl Marx is famous for predicting a workers\u2019 revolution in Britain and, as some politicians will gleefully tell you, for being wrong. But Marx wrote a lot of books and said a lot of things that are still startlingly relevant to how we think about the organisation of social life and the role of economics in determining how we think about ourselves. In this session, we\u2019ll develop our understanding of ideology and think about the relationship between bodies, machines and going shopping (with a little help from Johnny Cash).<\/p>\n

Session 3:\u00a0Tuesday 27 October
\n\u2018Culture Consuming Itself?\u2019<\/p>\n

Why has consumption become so central to the cultures of capitalism? This session will apply key concepts from Marxism to a discussion of ideas of identity, taste and cultural meaning. Why do we define ourselves through our shopping choices? Can we ever achieve individuality? How does semiotics help us to understand culture as representation?<\/p>\n

Session 4:\u00a0Tuesday 3\u00a0November
\n\u2018Sometimes it\u2019s Just a Cigar: The Surreal World of Sigmund Freud\u2019<\/p>\n

Sigmund Freud is another towering figure of the twentieth century who gets a bad press. But, like it or not, he gave us the language that we use when we speak about our personalities, early childhood development and mental health (he also provided PR and ad agencies with effective strategies for persuading us to, yes, go shopping). In this session, we\u2019ll look at psychoanalysis as cultural theory; as a way of thinking about what we dream about, how we behave and how we learn to distinguish ourselves according to the roles we\u2019re expected to play.<\/p>\n

Session 5:\u00a0Tuesday 17 November
\n\u2018Popular Interests: Antonio Gramsci and Hegemony\u2019<\/p>\n

Antonio Gramsci was the leader of the Italian Communist party after WW1 and spent a lot of time in prison. Happily for us, it gave him plenty of time to think. In this session we\u2019ll study his theory of \u2018hegemony\u2019 which helps to explain why we consent to be governed by people that really don\u2019t have our best interests at heart.<\/p>\n

Session 6: date\u00a0TBC\u00a0(this session will be set on a Saturday)
\n\u2018How to Get Interpellated: Louis Althusser (with Intro to Jacques Lacan)\u2019<\/p>\n

The French nearly had (another) revolution in 1968 but, ultimately, it failed. Louis Althusser was one of the post-\u201968 theorists who set himself the task of working out why people give in to authority, even when it would be better for them to not do so. We\u2019ll be studying how he made use of the post-Freudian theory of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan to explain why we all consider ourselves guilty until proven innocent.<\/p>\n

Session 7:\u00a0Tuesday 24 November
\n\u2018Monsieur Foucault and the Prison of the Self\u2019<\/p>\n

Michel Foucault was another post-\u201968 theorist whose work has had wide ranging consequences for how we think about power and its effects on how we understand ourselves and others. This is the first of three sessions where we\u2019ll explore his ideas and their relevance to contemporary culture. We\u2019ll be examining the design of an eighteenth century prison and how it gives us a model for understanding why we think some things (and people) are \u2018abnormal\u2019.<\/p>\n

Session 8:\u00a0Tuesday 8 December
\n\u2018Perverse Pleasures: Foucault and Sexuality\u2019<\/p>\n

One of the most important things that Foucault helps us to understand is that sexuality has a history. Although he disagreed with Marx about the way that power works, he had a similar interest in historical change and its effect on our private lives. In this session, we\u2019ll examine how our attitudes to sexual practices are deeply entangled with the power afforded to certain institutions by vested economic and political interests.<\/p>\n

Session 9:\u00a0Tuesday 15 December\u00a0(note this session is a week after the last one)
\n\u2018Racial Mythologies: Edward Said and Orientalism\u2019<\/p>\n

Foucault\u2019s ideas have considerable implications for how we understand racism and its effects in contemporary culture. In this session, we\u2019ll discuss the work of Edward Said who applied Foucault\u2019s insights about history, language and self-identity to understanding how racial stereotypes come to be accepted as \u2018truth\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction to Cultural Studies: Culture, Technology & Power – Free Course at Open School East Taking place over 9\u00a0Tuesdays, 6.30-8.30pm (check schedule below for exact dates) Click HERE for location 29 September \u2013 15\u00a0December 2015 Who has power in our cultures and how does it work? How do the ideas we have about what is … Continue reading Introduction to Cultural Studies: Culture, Technology & Power Free Course at Open School East<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1591,"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturalstudiesresearch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}