CULTURAL STUDIES THEN AND NOW
6 EC/AUTUMN SEMESTER, NOV 2016-JAN 2017
Instructor: Murat Aydemir (m.aydemir@uva.nl)
Cultural Studies and Cultural Analysis are no longer the young and rebellious upstarts they used to be. They have become canonised and institutionalised fields at a time in which the (critical, hermeneutic, theoretical) Humanities are under attack. At the same time, the political promises of the field — e.g. the emancipatory claims associated with identity politics and popular culture — seem no longer warranted, or at least demand new forms of confrontation and engagement. All this suggests it is now all the more urgent to ask ourselves anew how we want to inhabit or relate to the field. How do we wish to situate ourselves in, or perhaps vis-à-vis, Cultural Studies academically, institutionally, intellectually, and politically? In this course, we will revisit the main genealogies and methodologies of Cultural Studies in relation to current developments. How did Cultural Studies start out? What can it now be? With key readings by Stuart Hall, Mieke Bal, Paul Smith, Lawrence Grossberg, and many others.
CULTURAL ANALYSIS AND DISABILITY
6 EC/SPRING SEMESTER
Instructor: Jules Sturm (J.V.Sturm@uva.nl)
This course explores a new perspective on disability, corporeality, and subjectivity: an interdisciplinary approach traversing the intersections and overlaps between relevant social, cultural, political, artistic, ethical, and medical contexts. Our aim is to approach disability as a concept while using the analytical tools of cultural analysis, encouraging interdisciplinarity under a socially and politically responsible outlook. While the focus of the course will be academic, cross-disciplinary collaborations of artistic production, social engagement, and academic analysis are welcome.
PHILOSOPHY AND THE CRITICAL AND DECOLONIAL HUMANITIES IN A GLOBAL AGE
6 EC/SPRING SEMESTER, APRIL-MAY 2017
Instructor: Yolande Janssen (H.Y.M.Jansen@uva.nl)
In the humanities, globalisation has until recently been studied from two distinct perspectives: either cultural (postcolonial or de colonial) or normative. Over the last years, scholars from both the cultural and political-theoretical subfields have increasingly recognised that integrating these perspectives would be helpful to enhance the critical and practical potential of the Humanities in today’s world. In this course, we look at questions at the intersection of postcolonial and decolonial studies and normative political philosophy, and try to address them from an integrated perspective. How can political theory and the theoretical humanities benefit each other mutually; in which contexts; and concerning which problems? Readings: Thomas Pogge, Melissa Williams, Samuel Moyn, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Joseph Slaughter, Miriam Ticktin, Didier Fassin, Amy Allen, Robert Bernasconi, Charles Mills, Wendy Brown and Akeel Bilgrami