Entry requirements

Bachelor's degree (180 credits) or equivalent in social sciences, humanities or arts. General eligibility + the equivalent of Swedish higher secondary school English course B.

Progression level in relation to degree requirements

The course is included in the main field of Cultural Studies and can be included in the degree requirements for a Master's degree in Cultural Studies.

Course contents

The aim of this course is to enable students to conduct in-depth analysis and interpretations of cultural productions. The methodological approach is to encourage students to explore intersectional readings of artworks, films, performances, and texts, with a particular emphasis on shifting thought positions.

Politics of representation has been a central mode of inquiry for the discipline of cultural studies. Over time this necessary critique of normative values and perspectives, has evolved to encourage students to think about the powerplay, symbolism, and tensions infused within cultural productions. In this sense the word representation concerns identity and identification, issues of presence and absence, and also ways of articulation. Thus, this course gets into the details, focusing on specific “artefacts”, and exploring how “politics” infuses aesthetics as well as maker/subject positions, and ultimately influences how and why things are made. On this course students are also encouraged to sensitively consider the affective dimensions of representations and encounters with them, by navigating the discomfort that may come from recognising when cultural artefacts/productions are used and produced as weapons against citizens, communities, travellers, and social actors.

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course the student will be able to:

1. demonstrate an in-depth understanding of varying theoretical and artistic approaches to politics of representation
2. analyse literary texts, artworks, films and/or other cultural productions
3. apply relevant theories explored during the course to analysis of representations
4. consider the ethical dimensions involved in the making, circulation, and reuse of cultural productions

Learning activities

Seminars, workshops, and reading groups.

Assessment

One media presentation (a podcast, or video) where all learning outcomes will be assessed.

Course literature

• Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park. Any edition.
• Blaser, Mario. ”Ontological Conflicts and the Stories of Peoples in Spite of Europe: Toward a Conversation on Political Ontology.” Current Anthropology, Vol. 54, No. 5 (October 2013), pp. 547-568.
• Braidotti, Rosi. ”Introduction: Posthuman, All-Too-Human” + ”The Posthuman Condition” + ”The Posthuman Subject” + ”Posthuman Knowledge Production.” In Posthuman Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2019.
• Butler, Judith. ”Introduction: Precarious Life, Grievable Life.” + ”Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect.”In Frames of War. Verso, 2009.
• Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Any edition.
• Mol, Annemarie. ”Ontological politics. A wordand some questions.” Sociological Review , May 1999. Supplement, Vol. 47 Issue 1, p74-89.
• Savransky, Martin. ”Worlds in the making: social sciences and the ontopolitics of knowledge.” Postcolonial Studies, Sep 2012, Vol. 15 Issue 3, p351-368.
• Szeman, Imre, and Timothy Kaposy (eds). Cultural Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Print.
• Winkel Holm,Isak. ”Zombies and Citizens. The Ontopolitics of Disaster in Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend” In Capeloa Gil, Isabel, Wulf, Christoph. Hazardous Future: Disaster, Representation and the Assessment of Risk. Berlin/Munich/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2015.

Supplementary articles, literature and other media will be provided.

Course evaluation

Malmö University provides students who participate in, or who have completed a course, with the opportunity to express their opinions and describe their experiences of the course by completing a course evaluation administered by the University. The University will compile and summarise the results of course evaluations. The University will also inform participants of the results and any decisions relating to measures taken in response to the course evaluations. The results will be made available to the students (HF 1:14).

Interim rules

If a course is no longer offered, or has undergone significant changes, the students must be offered two opportunities for re-examination based on the syllabus that applied at the time of registration, for a period of one year after the changes have been implemented.

Additional information

If a student has a Learning support decision, the examiner has the right to provide the student with an adapted test, or to allow the student to take the exam in a different format. The syllabus is a translation of a Swedish source text.