Contemporary English Culture

Objectives

a) To present and discuss, starting from the ongoing debates on “culture” carried out since the Victorian period by anglophone thinkers, the main theoretical concepts and analytical practices put forward by “British Cultural Studies”;

b) To invite students to apply what they have learned to facts, phenomena and characters which they feel have somehow shaped (or still shape) “whole ways of life” in contemporary Britain;

c) To stimulate and enhance competences and abilities associated with research and the production of knowledge through the development of critical analysis and evaluation of relevant information;

d) To assess the quality of work produced through b) and c).

General characterization

Code

01101112

Credits

6.0

Responsible teacher

Miguel Nuno Mercês de Mello de Alarcão e Silva

Hours

Weekly - 4

Total - 168

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

- EAGLETON, Terry (2000), The Idea of Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.
- HIGGINS, Michael, Clarissa Smith e John Storey (eds.) (2010), The
Cambridge Companion to Modern British Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
- MULHERN, Francis (2001), Culture/Metaculture. London and New York:
Routledge, “The New Critical Idiom”.
- STORRY, Mike e Peter Childs, eds. (2017), British Cultural Identities. London:
Routledge.
- TURNER, Graeme (1996), British Cultural Studies. An Introduction. London
and New York: Routledge.

Teaching method

This course consists of lectures and oral presentations, a short period (10-15
mins.) being set aside, at the end of each session, for questions, comments and
debate. The lecturer will try to help and guide students through their research by
suggesting and providing additional references for further reading.

Evaluation method

Método de avaliação - Oral presentations (individual or in groups) on any relevant theme/topic)(100%)

Subject matter

I ) Introduction:

I.1. The first British cultural analysts and thinkers: from Matthew Arnold to T. S. Eliot.

I.2. The Making of British Cultural Studies:

I.2.1. The pioneers: Richard Hoggart, E. P. Thompson and Raymond Williams;

I.2.2. Other Anglophone developments and approaches.

II) Oral presentations.

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: