Course description

The course aims to introduce the critical analysis of culture through the scrutiny of the power dynamics that regulated cultural production in the Western world during the 20^th century, as well as through the exploration of contemporary forces that shape our perception of culture. More specifically, we will investigate how major thinkers and intellectual movements determined significant shifts in our understanding of culture, in order to consolidate epistemological tools that will facilitate the interpretation of our contemporary context. 

The overarching narrative of the course will include some key moments of 20^th-century intellectual history. Namely, we will consider the notion of cultural hegemony, postwar debates on Eurocentrism, anthropological relativism, and the current deindividualization of spaces and places, in order to explore the influence that Western conceptualizations of culture have had on the perception of the world that we inhabit. Readings will include T. S. Eliot, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Edward Said, Marc Augé, and the discussion of a movie by Belgian filmmaker Agnès Varda. An ex-cursus on the music industry and songwriting will also bring Taylor Swift and Lana del Rey into our conversation on popular culture.

Course taught in English. All materials will be made available by the instructor in this shared Google Drive folder: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SudPgrpKc-6EyEcMjsHqwvVzySh-JmPi?usp=share_link

Grading and assessment

Students will be graded based on the following class components:

Reading, attendance, and participation in class (10%). Students are asked to attend every meeting and to keep up with the readings assigned for each class. This is a discussion-based course and students are required to respectfully and actively participate in the conversation (both groupwork and plenary discussion).

Two close reading home assignments (20% and 20%). Two written assignments consisting of a close reading exercise. More detailed guidelines will follow.

Final in-class exam (50%). The exam will take place during the last week of classes (Tuesday, April 30) and will consist of close- and open-ended questions on the primary texts and the main notions discussed during the semester. 

Bibliography

Marc Augé, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London, New York: Verso, 1995. 

T. S. Eliot, Notes toward the Definition of Culture, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1949.

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books, 1973.

bell hooks, “marginality as site of resistance,” in Ferguson, Gever, Minh-ha, West (eds.), Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.

Claude Levi-Strauss, Race and History, Paris: UNESCO, 1952. 

Edward Said, Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1966. 

Yoko Tawada, Where Europe Begins, New York: New Directions Book, 2002 [1991].