Overview
This is a programme which in the first core course offers a different topic each week permitting the exploration of various methodologies and approaches. The first five weeks will present you with work from the Birmingham tradition and beyond to the present day, including neo-nationalism, race and ethnicity, policing and the prison system, gender and popular feelings, and the rise of queer theory.
The second five weeks turn to media technologies, sonic cultures, gender and social media and more broadly issues of cultural production and consumption. The second core course provides an intense engagement with questions of cultural theory, capitalist society, new activisms, and the politics of protest and assembly.
The programme’s modules can include the different ways in which culture itself is to be understood in terms of technologies, practices, subjectivities and capitalist social formations. Options modules are available within the department at either 15 or 30 credit levels. Further option modules can also be taken in the Anthropology, English and Creative Writing, History, Politics and Sociology departments. As if not enough, students are also encouraged to ‘audit’ modules – attend lectures (but not seminars), without enrolling for assessment.
Core modules
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Module title |
Credits |
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Cultural Studies and Capitalism
Cultural Studies and Capitalism
30 credits
The critique of capitalism has been an important horizon for research and theory in cultural studies since its inception. Beginning with an introduction to this (anti-)disciplinary history, this module introduces and engages with past and contemporary critical approaches to the imbrication of capitalism and culture in cultural studies, cultural theory and philosophy.
We will consider the evolution of cultural studies from its early focus on the role of capitalism in shaping class relations and class culture, through its integration of such critiques into a still-expanding range of areas of concern, including issues around gender, race, sexuality, (post)colonialism, posthumanism and ecology. We will engage with key theoretical concepts and paradigms that have been developed in order to better understand the cultural dimension and functioning of capital, such as commodity fetishism, ‘capitalism-as-religion’, gift-exchange, theories of debt, parasitism, neoliberalism, information capitalism, and post-natural ecology.
We will ask how contemporary global phenomena such as the rise of digital networking, climate change and financial crisis may be transforming the relationship between capitalism and culture, and critically examine currently circulating claims that capitalism is giving way to ‘postcapitalism’.
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30 credits |
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MA Cultural Studies Dissertation (Methodology and Research)
MA Cultural Studies Dissertation (Methodology and Research)
60 credits
The dissertation provides you with an opportunity to undertake a research project on a topic of significance to Cultural Studies, drawing on the knowledge, understanding and skills developed through the taught modules studied during the rest of the programme.
General preparation in addressing methodological questions relating to the dissertation, and training on specific research methods, are provided in a 5-week research methods module during the Spring term. This aspect of the module culminates in a 5,000 word essay/report comprised of a critical analysis of research methods.
Students then go on to conduct the research and complete the 10,000-12,000 word dissertation under the guidance of a dedicated supervisor.
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60 credits |
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Doing Cultural Studies
Doing Cultural Studies
30 credits
This module concentrates on Cultural Studies as a research methodology, a method of engagement and intervention with current debates and practices, and in addition a method of collective working.
The module takes examples from a diverse range of topics in the field of media and cultural studies, such as policing and the military-industrial prison complex; racialised, gender and identity politics and intersectionality; media platforms and technologies; the production and consumption of popular culture; feminist and post-feminism; elites, political power and hegemony; visual and sound arts et al.
Particular interventions in these areas are taken as examples of a range of methodological approaches such as textual and visual analysis, conjunctual analysis, ethnographies and case studies.
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30 credits |
Optional Modules
You will take option modules to the value of 60 credits chosen from across Goldsmiths departments. There are several Media modules available to you on this programme.
You may also be able to take modules from across many other Goldsmiths departments, such as:
• Anthropology
• English and Creative Writing
• History
• Politics
• Sociology
Please note that module availability can change from year to year, and not all modules listed may be open to you. Your final selection will depend on spaces available and timetable compatibility.
Download the programme specification. If you would like an earlier version of the programme specification, please contact the Quality Office.
Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.