Approaches to Theory
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| MLAC4088 | Media, Languages and Cultures | 4 | 20 | Autumn Malaysia |
- Code
- MLAC4088
- School
- Media, Languages and Cultures
- Level
- 4
- Credits
- 20
- Semesters
- Autumn Malaysia
Summary
Scholars in the humanities including cultural studies have been concerned about the issues facing humankind: environmental degradation, climate change, anti-immigrant sentiments and racism, homophobia, sexism and their linkages with capitalism. For much of the life of media and cultural studies, scholarship has centred predominantly on representation and identity (Hall). Here, the understanding of language, discourse and power (Foucault) plays a crucial role. However, postmodernism taken to its extremes can degenerate into the belief that actions in the material world are mere 'language games', 'discursive effects' and as a result, alienate the more activist aspects of cultural studies and the humanities from theory. In a move to reconnect theory with practice and the material world, critical thinkers across a spectrum of fields like Deleuze, Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Anna L. Tsing, have explored ideas about the post-human, giving rise to a new field-posthumanism-whereby the focus on the huamn self (our identity, anthropomorphism) expands spatially outward to thinking about how humankind fits into the planetary system-coexisting, contesting or cooperating with other life forms and inanimate and non-human objects like machines/technology-and contracts inward to exploring microbiologically how parts within our bodies, or within other life forms function together. At the same time, the focus is also expanding temporally back into the distant past (hence, the current fixation on the Anthropocene as following from older periods) to think about what lies ahead in the future of humankind. This module covers some of the key thinkers emerging in post-humanism doing interdisciplinary work and offering theories and ideas for how the self can relate to others (read in the broadest of terms) or how the other and the Self binary need not be opposed in a persistent contest for power.
Target Students
Students registered on the MA Media, Communication and Culture. It is also available as an elective module to Erasmus students in their 4th years and to students on other MA programmes covering related issues offered in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. There are limited places on this module.
Classes
- One 2-hour seminar each week for 12 weeks
Assessment
- 60% Coursework 1: 4,000-word final essay
- 20% In-Class Exam: Written Exam
- 20% In-Class Exam: Oral Exam
Assessed by end of autumn semester
Educational Aims
This module aims to:Introduce students to basic concepts and theoretical approaches in doing cultural studiesProvide students with some historical background that contextualises common sense ideas in order to deconstruct these ideas or critique themInculcate close reading of textsImprove writing and reading skillsLearning Outcomes
- Understand concepts and approaches like discourse analysis, ideology and hegemony.
- Apply the theoretical approaches to the study of cultural texts, identities and practices.
- Familiarise yourself with sociological and philosophical developments and debates on identity and modernity.
- Improve your skills in independent research and in written communication.
- Improve oral communication
- Think critically, write and argue with key concepts and theories
Conveners
- Mr Ahmad Fuad Rahmat