Researching Cultures

Subject MULT90037 (2015)

Note: This is an archived Handbook entry from 2015.

Credit Points: 6.25
Level: 9 (Graduate/Postgraduate)
Dates & Locations:

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2015:

August, Parkville - Taught on campus.
Pre-teaching Period Start not applicable
Teaching Period 10-Aug-2015 to 07-Sep-2015
Assessment Period End 09-Oct-2015
Last date to Self-Enrol 14-Aug-2015
Census Date 28-Aug-2015
Last date to Withdraw without fail 18-Sep-2015

Semester 1, Parkville - Taught on campus.
Pre-teaching Period Start not applicable
Teaching Period 02-Mar-2015 to 31-May-2015
Assessment Period End 26-Jun-2015
Last date to Self-Enrol 13-Mar-2015
Census Date 31-Mar-2015
Last date to Withdraw without fail 08-May-2015


Timetable can be viewed here. For information about these dates, click here.
Time Commitment: Contact Hours: Fortnightly, 2hr x 6, 24 hours total
Total Time Commitment:

Total 85 Hours

Prerequisites: None
Corequisites: None
Recommended Background Knowledge: None
Non Allowed Subjects: None
Core Participation Requirements:

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

Coordinator

Assoc Prof Robert Hassan, Prof Rachel Fensham

Contact

Office of Graduate Studies, Faculty of Arts

Email: arts-research@unimelb.edu.au

Subject Overview:

This seminar/workshop series will examine cultures, focusing on how the humanities deal with culture, including cultural production, forms and practices, across the axes of time and space, and incorporating both the virtual and the material dimensions. Together we will examine uneasy tensions in the hermeneutics of culture; ranging from histories of material culture to the expanded terrain of mediated, transnational culture, as discussed by different theorists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, such as Walter Benjamin, Raymond Williams, David Harvey, Rey Chow, Sara Ahmed, Arjun Appadurai. The range of topics covered during the semester will be framed from the micro- to the macro-level perspective and back, and may include concepts of the everyday, of bodies, affect, hybridity, aesthetics, the function of technology, and the effects of global communication networks.

This year-long, fortnightly workshop will also provide graduate students with an opportunity to utilize a range of research methods in the expanded humanities. Individual sessions will enable close reading and discussion, as well as the development of particular case studies that construct the study of past and contemporary cultures in a self-reflexive and critical form. Positioning cultural research in relation to gender, race, geography, commodification and the intermediality of culture, individual research projects will be given attention as the workshop evolves.

Learning Outcomes:

Successful completion of the Research Workshop will enable students to have an enhanced awareness of the range of contemporary scholarship in the discipline or interdisciplinary area. In the assessment, students will be expected to demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate the contemporary research literature that is relevant to the thesis topic. The Research Workshop will also enable students to formulate and present the research proposal for confirmation.

Assessment:
  • one 2,500-word literature review positioning essay. Due at the end of first semester (50%)
  • one 2,500-word research essay. Due during mid-second semester (50%)
Prescribed Texts: None
Breadth Options:

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

Fees Information: Subject EFTSL, Level, Discipline & Census Date
Related Course(s): Ph.D.- Arts

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