Welcome to Contemporary Culture Theory (or CCT), for 7,5 ECTS!

This course is taught and coordinated by Jakob Löfgren Links to an external site.. Contact him, if you have questions about the course and the teaching. jakob.lofgren@etnologi.uu.se

Your other teachers are Camilla Asplund Ingemark Links to an external site., Annie Woube Links to an external site. and Oscar Pripp Links to an external site..

The course starts with an introductory lecture on Thursday, 31st August at 13.15-15 in room 3-2028 (Campus Engelska Parken). The classes are held once a week, mostly on Thursday afternoons. The course ends on 27th October 2023.

The course (1) explores some of the major theories used and developed in modern ethnology and folkloristics and (2) exemplifies how ethnologists and folklorists operate with these theories in empirical studies today.

 

Schedule

Schedule in Time Edit Links to an external site.

 

Schedule with required reading

31^st August – Course introduction (Jakob Löfgren)

Course introduction

 

7^th September – Emotion and Affect (Jakob Löfgren)

Reading:

Wetherell, Margret, 2012: Affect and Emotion: A New Social Science Understanding. London: SAGE. 192pp.  

Case study reading:

Pétursson, Jón Þór 2020: Intimate Food : Establishing Relationships within the Food Chain. Avhandling. Reykjavik: Félagsvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands.  (Article IV) 27pp.

 

14^th September – Materiality (Jakob Löfgren)

Reading:

Miller, Daniel 2009: Stuff. London: UCL press. 165pp.  

Case study reading:

Sløk-Andersen, Beate 2018: “How good soldiers become with their uniforms. An exploration of uniformity in action” i Etnologia Scandinavica (2018) ISSN 0348-9698. 19pp.  

 

21^st September – Narrative (Jakob Löfgren)

Reading:

Herman, David 2009: Basic Elements of Narrative. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. 249 pp.

Case study reading:

Löfgren, Jakob 2020: “Boys memories in adult narratives” i Etnologia Scandinavica (2020) ISSN 0348-9698. 13pp.

 

28^th September – Stigma (Oscar Pripp)

Reading:

Goffman, Erving 1999 [1963]: Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York:Simon & Shuster 140pp. Also available in the Penguin Modern Classics series, 147 pp.

Case study reading:

Goldstein, Diane E. & Shuman, Amy 2016: The Stigmatized Vernacular: Where Reflexivity Meets Untellability. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Chapter by Amy Schuman and Carol Bohmer.  https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2005w71. Links to an external site. 27 pp.

 

5^th October – Discourse analysis – (Oscar Pripp)

Reading:

Ingridsdotter, Jenny 2017. The Promises of the Free World – Postsocialist Experience in Argentina and the Making of Migrants, Race, and Coloniality. Huddinge: Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations. (13-86, 121-167, 211-252). 160 pp. Microsoft Word - _ingridsdotter_170327 (diva-portal.org) Links to an external site.

 

Case study Reading:

Howarth, David & Stavrakis, Yannis 2000: Introducing discourse theory and political analysis., In David Howarth, Aletta J. Noval & Yannis Stavrakis; Discourse theory and political analysis : identities, hegemonies, and social change. Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press. Pp. 1-23. 23pp. Discourse_Theory_and_Political_Analysis.pdf Download Discourse_Theory_and_Political_Analysis.pdf

 

12^th October – Post Humanism (Maryam Adjam)

Observe the meeting will be on zoom.

Zoom-link for the meeting: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/4139872710 Links to an external site. 

Reading:

Haraway, Donna 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Part 1) 130pp.

Case study reading:

Harjunen, Catarina 2019: Queer Perspectives on Erotic Human-Supernatural Encounters in Finland-Swedish Folk Legends. Lambda Nordica 1/2019:46–66. 20pp.

 

19^th October – ANT (Annie Woube)

Reading:

Latour, Bruno 2005: Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uu/detail.action?docID=422646&pq-origsite=primo Links to an external site.  (Part 1) 120pp.

Case study reading:

Resløkken, Åmund Norum 2020: Crystallized Belief: Objects of Tradition in Folklife Research in the Inter-War Years. Ethnologia Scandinavica 50:1–16. https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/84169/ES20%2bArt%2bResl%25C3%25B8kken%2b%25C3%2585NR%2bpostprint.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y Links to an external site..

 

27^th of October – Seminar with oral presentations (TBA):

Part of the examination of the course will be in the form of an oral presentation on the theories discussed during the seminars. More information on the oral presentation will be given during the course introduction. 

 

Required Reading

Goffman, Erving 1999 [1963]: Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York:Simon & Shuster

Goldstein, Diane E. & Shuman, Amy 2016: The Stigmatized Vernacular: Where Reflexivity Meets Untellability. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.. https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.its.uu.se/stable/j.ctt2005w71 Links to an external site..

Haraway, Donna 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Harjunen, Catarina 2019: Queer Perspectives on Erotic Human-Supernatural Encounters in Finland-Swedish Folk Legends. Lambda Nordica 1/2019:46–66.

Herman, David 2009: Basic Elements of Narrative. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Howarth, David & Stavrakis, Yannis 2000: Introducing discourse theory and political analysis., In David Howarth, Aletta J. Noval & Yannis Stavrakis; Discourse theory and political analysis : identities, hegemonies, and social change. Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press. Pp. 1-23.

Ingridsdotter, Jenny 2017. The Promises of the Free World – Postsocialist Experience in Argentina and the Making of Migrants, Race, and Coloniality. Huddinge: Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations.

Latour, Bruno 2005: Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uu/detail.action?docID=422646&pq-origsite=primo Links to an external site.

Löfgren, Jakob 2020: “Boys memories in adult narratives” i Etnologia Scandinavica (2020) ISSN 0348-9698. 13s.

Miller, Daniel 2009: Stuff. London: UCL press.

Pétursson, Jón Þór 2020: Intimate Food : Establishing Relationships within the Food Chain. Avhandling. Reykjavik: Félagsvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands.

Resløkken, Åmund Norum 2020: Crystallized Belief: Objects of Tradition in Folklife Research in the Inter-War Years. Ethnologia Scandinavica 50:1–16. https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/84169/ES20%2bArt%2bResl%25C3%25B8kken%2b%25C3%2585NR%2bpostprint.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y Links to an external site..

Sløk-Andersen, Beate 2018: “How good soldiers become with their uniforms. An exploration of uniformity in action” i Etnologia Scandinavica (2018) ISSN 0348-9698.

Wetherell, Margret, 2012: Affect and Emotion: A New Social Science Understanding. London: SAGE.

Outline and examination

The outline of the course is as follows:

• Every week you will read the required litterature.
• A 45 minute lecture on the theory of the week will be given by the lecturer (see the list of lectures, readings and teachers above) 
• The second part of our weekly meetings are a seminar in which we together look at the case study reading text and discuss the implementation of the theory at hand in modern ethnology & folkloristics 

The examination of the course is two-pronged and will be conducted as follows:

• Every week you will be required to submit a reflexive learnig diary, recounting the discussions in the read litterature, lecture and discussion (see the detailed instructions below) 
• At the end of the course a oral (conference style) paper will be delivered on a theory of choice. This will be done as a group effort. The exact parameters (time frame) will be decided at the course introduction.  The presentation will require a presentation in the form of a ppt. or prezi and will be heard by two of the course lecturers and will be preceeded by the construction of a short abstract. 
• The day for the oral presentation is the 27/10 2023 13-17:00 CET

What is a learning diary? - more detailed instructions 

A learning diary is a reflexive text reflecting upon what you yourself have learned from the required reading and questions that you reflected on in/during the lectures/seminars. It is a style of text that focuses on your ability to process and ponder theoretical thought and application in free text.   

In this course the learning diary will be handed in the day before the next lecture. Links will be provided in the assignments section. 

The required length of the diary entries are 4-5pp./entry.

• Half of which you will spend on the presentation of the main thoughts and your reflection on the required reading of the week (roughly 2-2.5 pp.).
• The other half you will be required to reflect on issues discussed, raised and contemplated in the seminar-section of the weekly meeting. 

Remember that what is important is (1) your own ability to present the main lines of the theory at hand and (2) your reflections and contemplations on the theory at hand. 

The style of reference to be used in both lecture diaries and the oral paper is the CHICAGO authour date style.