| Unit name | Celebrity Culture: Icons, Industry and Aesthetics |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ENGL30110 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Andrew Blades |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of English |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
The study of celebrity may be new, but the cultural fascination with fame and the famous is ancient. This transhistorical unit explores notions of celebrity – its bodies, images, aesthetics, texts and industries – and offers provocative interdisciplinary possibilities for thinking about issues of performance, affect, gender, race, sexuality, class, and visual and cultural representation. In the first half of the unit, lectures will introduce a wide variety of speakers, not just from English, but from disciplines such as History, Law, Film and Music; in seminars, students will encounter a wide variety of creative nonfiction, commentary, poetry and cultural theory, including works by Walter Benjamin, Susan Sontag, bell hooks, Zadie Smith and Claudia Rankine. Along the way, the unit encourages us to think about the economics of celebrity; questions of spectacle and spectatorship; the relationship between the local, national and transnational; the ways in which celebrity bodies are presented and represented as both archetypal and exceptional; the role of celebrity in constructing and critiquing gender and race; the relationships between celebrity and technologies, both historical and contemporary; the politics of fame. The second half of the unit focuses more closely on particular case studies, in preparation for the summative portfolio submission.
Upon successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Teaching will involve asynchronous and synchronous elements, including long- and short-form lectures, group discussion, research and writing activities, and peer dialogue. Students are expected to engage with the reading and participate fully with the weekly tasks and topics. Learning will be further supported through the opportunity for individual consultation.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. ENGL30110).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the Faculty workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. If you have self-certificated your absence from an
assessment, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (this is usually in the next assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any extenuating circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
