MA Sociology (Cultural Analysis)

This module is the core course for the MA Sociology Cultural Analysis pathway.

It aims to provide you with a detailed, intensive introduction to some of the key thinkers who have been influential in the development of cultural theory and analysis. It is necessarily selective, with an emphasis on 20th-century European thought, but you'll also explore the different cultural critiques and critical cultures that have emerged through different perspectives. Through lectures and group discussions, we'll examine the interventions of the most important interventions in contemporary cultural theory and analysis. The course will appeal to those who wish to spend time deepening their appreciation of theoretical interventions, and who enjoy discussing the implications of theoretical analysis for both sociological research and political critique. 

The lectures will situate the theorist within their intellectual context and discuss the implications and significance of the contribution.

Methodology Now will address ‘sociology-in-the-making’, examining epistemological claims, methodological processes and inventive qualitative research methods. The module aims to activate the sociological imagination so that you can critically evaluate current debates about sociological methodology. You'll study how sociological methodology is being transformed in the age of visual, digital and other technologies, as well as discuss the extent to which live or inventive forms of empirical research challenge other modes of social and cultural analysis.

Through a combination of lectures, seminars and workshops, you'll explore key moments in sociological research, beginning with the formulation of problems, the idea of relevance and ethics. The course will be team-taught, with a weekly lecture, seminar and workshop which will be focused on short exercises of qualitative methods in action. You'll be assessed through a portfolio of summative assessments which are built up over ten weeks, culminating in the final assessment which will comprise of a research proposal. The modular nature of the assessment is intended to give more opportunity for non-traditional styles of learning.

The dissertation is a substantial piece of written work. It is intended to assess the full range of your abilities and to apply the full range of learning outcomes that you develop through your degree. In particular, it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables you to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.

Students on the MA Sociology, and Urban and Cultural Analysis pathways will be expected to submit a written dissertation of 12-15,000 words. Students on the Visual Sociology pathway will complete a project which combines a practice element or product with a methodological and theoretical reflection (5-6,000 words) as part of the project. As a guideline, a project should show substantial engagement with media and materials, for example it might consist of ca. 20 mins of video, a series of 20-30 photographs or drawings or an installation combining any number of objects and texts.

In every century over the last millennium, Cities have been a crucial node within the networks of commerce and cultural exchange that spanned the world. In the 21st century, Cities remain a site of intense activity, sat atop innumerable junctions of capital, migration, culture and commodities. As such Cities such as London present the ideal focal point for developing an understanding of the pressing questions facing cities today and into the future. However, while it is important to understand the long history of, for example, London’s place within global networks of exchange and power, it is also impossible to ignore the extent to which, in recent years, forces that shape the contemporary city are visibly shifting. That is, the roads that meet at the city’s junction are arriving from new destinations, carrying new opportunities and risks. Accordingly, this course seeks to understand how cities such as London are being re-made amidst the re-wiring of global circuitry.  

Focusing on specific examples – drawn from the Centre for Urban and Community Research’s activity across London and beyond – you'll explore the impact of new technologies, markets, mutations in governing ideologies, novel patterns of mobility and new technologies of surveillance on the city and its inhabitants. Beyond understanding how these developments impact on the city, the module aims to develop an understanding of cities such as London through its relatedness to other urban locations, situating London’s connectedness to elsewhere as integral to the ways in which the city is being re-made. As much as this is a module about rethinking the city, it is also about rethinking cities around the world, each increasingly interconnected with the rest, but with its own particularities bequeathed by ecology, culture and history. 

This module is intended to take you on a selective route through 20th and 21st-century philosophical reflections on politics & the philosophies of difference. You'll explore contemporary debates as part of a longer discussion.

You'll examine themes such as radical pluralism, relationality, divergence, multiplicity, and becoming. This module has been designed to critically review the continuing relevance of questions raised by our key thinkers by pairing them with another contemporary writer who either explicitly speaks to that thinker or who shares the key thinker’s attentions or philosophical imaginary in some way.

Each week, you'll have two set readings, and you're encouraged to read both if possible. In this way it will be possible for you to follow a more overtly theoretical route through the course, or follow a route that stays closer to theoretical controversies as they are played out in contemporary sites or issues.

In this module, you'll be expected to build on your growing understanding of media and materials in terms of sociological research projects by addressing a common course theme. You'll be encouraged to think about the appropriateness of different kinds of visual and sensory materials when addressing sociological questions, conducting research projects, and presenting their outcomes in relation to this theme in an exhibition, which takes place in the last week of term.

We'll explore the theme “above and below”, which is both understood as a prime metaphorical logic of organising societies (“upper class”, “social ladder”, “the global north and south”, “looking down on someone”, imagining God and Angels as being above etc.) as well as a crucial practice of organizing society, i.e. being buried, dwelling in bunkers, boring holes for tunnels, the practice of archaeology, oceanography, extraction mining, mountaineering, diving, flying, drones, living in penthouses and skyscrapers and so on. And we also want to ask how these metaphorical organising principles relate to the actual practices and what happens if we subvert them. What if God were imagined to exist down below, and living underground were considered a luxury?  

This course begins with presentations of the topic “above and below” in relation to sociological and historical debates as well as issues of representation. In your own experiments, you might begin by posing the question: what does it mean to attempt to represent issues of above and below? What might escape or exceed different visual or sensory forms? Which media is best suited to your initial explorations?