Unit information: Popular Representation and Institutions of Culture in 2022/23

Unit name	Popular Representation and Institutions of Culture
Unit code	MODL20026
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. Hurcombe
Open unit status	Not open
Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units)	None
Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units)	None
Units you may not take alongside this one	None
School/department	School of Modern Languages
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Unit Information

This unit focusses on the imbrications between culture and politics in the 20th and 21st centuries. Moving beyond élite forms of culture and across different contexts, we ask, firstly, how nation-states have attempted to mobilise ‘culture’ to gain legitimacy and consolidate power at home and abroad. Secondly, we ask how a wide cast of characters – artists, writers, athletes, activists, doctors and others – have resisted the efforts of nation-states (as well as of institutions above, below and beyond the state) to marshal and co-opt them. Thirdly, we consider how cultural and political forms have moved across borders, and how these have been adopted, adapted and reforged in these histories of export and circulation.

Part 1: Thinking culture and politics

1. Theorising culture, politics and cultural politics (Alexandra Reza)

2. Cultural power: the state and cultural institutions (Alexandra Reza)

Part 2: Institutions of culture and control

3. The asylum (John Foot)

4. The prison (John Foot)

5. The school (John Foot)

Part 3: Travelling political forms

6. The USSR – bringing people in (Claire Knight)

7. The USSR – sending the message out (Claire Knight)

Part 4: Sport, war and peace

8. Sport and martial masculinity: preparing for war (Martin Hurcombe)

9. Sport and internationalism: war by other means? (Martin Hurcombe)

10. Assessment workshop (Martin Hurcombe)

Your learning on this unit

By the end of the unit the students will be able to:

1. Apply an advanced understanding of the interrelations between political discourse and socio-cultural formations in specific European political contexts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
2. Analyse how nations have designed and controlled institutions of culture to shape the mindset of their citizens or people and affirm their political legitimacy
3. Appraise the discursive and cultural mechanisms whereby nations have sought to export their political ideas beyond their borders and evaluate the results of these policies on the shaping of local institutions of culture
4. Demonstrate a firm grasp of theoretical and critical scholarship in the relevant fields of study.
5. Formulate sophisticated and independent reflections on the unit’s content in writing at a level appropriate to level 5/I.

How you will learn

• One two-hour interactive lecture per week
• Single-honour students will have an additional fortnightly one-hour tutorial on material related to the unit, but not assessed
• One two-hour seminar per week, including presentations, class discussions and small group work

How you will be assessed

• 1 x group presentation (25%), [ILOs 1, 2, and 5]
• 1 x 3000-word essay (75%), [ILOs 3, 4, and 5]

Resources

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. MODL20026).

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.