Elective course: Current theme and research in Cultural Encounters

E2023

Kulturmødestudier

Course

English

Læs mere om uddannelsen og find din studieordning på ruc.dk

You register for activities through stads selvbetjening during the announced registration period, which you can see on the Study administration homepage.

When registering for courses, please be aware of the potential conflicts and overlaps between course and exam time and dates. The planning of course activities at Roskilde University is based on the recommended study programmes, which should not overlap. However, if you choose optional courses and/or study plans that goes beyond the recommended study programmes, an overlap of lectures or exam dates may occur depending on which courses you choose.

The course is conducted depending on the number of participants.

5

Nazila Ghavami Kivi (ngkivi@ruc.dk)

Louise Tranekjær (louiset@ruc.dk)

IKH Registration & Exams (ikh-exams@ruc.dk)

U60157

This course introduces students to a current topic in Cultural Encounters. Particular attention is given to research areas that are current and characterised by negotiation between different positions. The course will focus on how to identify and understand recent knowledge and understanding of the topic as well as the theoretical and methodological questions raised in the work on the selected topic.

Given the course’s focus on concurrent themes and research in Cultural Encounters, the course may both focus on diverse methodologies, different theoretical concepts and different types of empirical data and research sites.

This semester's main them will be: From Witches to Cyborgs: Critical and feminist responses to the global crises of care, climate change and racism

This course gives you knowledge on two overall perspectives in feminist and critical thinking:

• An introduction to the interconnections between colonial history and ‘the body’ as central for the excertion of control over gendered/racialized bodies AND nature itself (leading to the current climate crisis) – among these how the Witch Hunts, slavery, sexism and the exploitation of nature are deeply entangled and interconnected in Western history.
• An introduction to contemporary modes of resistance through academia, art and activism taking departure in the above mentioned modes of control and how art and literature play key parts in this resistance, among other forms of artistic expression. • We will touch upon subjects like: What is human? And what is not? How does art and literature work as resistance modes towards the current crises of climate/nature and the body? What is eco-feminism and how does it express itself in literature and art? Can we do a feminist reclaim of technology? And how?

The course is a mix of literature studies, feminist theory and feminist STS (science and technology studies) and posthuman feminism/eco-feminism. We will include art, literature and performance as our subjects of analysis.

Keywords: Feminist studies, Postcolonial Studies, Eco-feminism, Hydrofeminism, Witch Hunts, Cyborg Feminism, Comaprative Literature, Posthuman Feminism

We will be reading texts of, among others, Silvia Federici (Caliban and the Witch), Donna Haraway (The Cyborg Manifest), Astrida Neimani (Hydrofeminism), texts on eco-feminism, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson (Becoming Human), Rosi Braidotti (The Posthuman), C Riley Snorton (on Blackness and gender)...

And analyze art/literary texts from writers such as Shahrnush Parsipur, Octavia Butler, Ursula K Le Guin, Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen, Nanna Storr-Hansen and more.

Teaching will include lectures, fieldtrips and fieldwork, and small research/writing assignments.

The purpose of the course is both to introduce you to a research theme of relevance to your Cultural Encounters profile, but also introduce you to relevant methods for working with this particular field. Course literature and description of the course as such will be available on Moodle.

Check moodle for all details.

Study intensity

The course gives 5 ects which corresponds to a workload of 135 hours, distributed as follows:

• Course work: 20 hours

• Around 11 hours of preparation for each session, including preparation for discussions, small assignments and presentations as well as literature reading

Activities in this course predominantly takes the format of class teaching on campus. However, the course may also include work- shops, student presentations, excursions, peer feedback and individ- ual/group exercises.

Oral evaluation.

A detailed program/syllabus for the course will be found in moodle.

• has in-depth knowledge and understanding of a current topic in the field of Cultural Encounters

• can elect and present relevant methodologies and theories to understand and analyse the chosen topic

• can apply and evaluate analytical perspectives that are relevant within a given field

The course is passed through active and satisfactory participation.

Active participation is defined as:
The student must participate in course related activities (e.g. workshops, seminars, field excursions, process study groups, working conferences, supervision groups, feedback sessions).

Satisfactory participation is defined as:
- e.g. oral presentations (individually or in a group), peer reviews, mini projects, test, planning of a course session .

Assessment: Pass/Fail.

Individual written take-home assignment

The character limit of the assignment is: 19,200-24,000 characters, including spaces.
The character limit includes the cover, table of contents, bibliography, figures and other illustrations, but exclude any appendices.

The duration of the take-home assignment is 7 days and may include weekends and public holidays.



Assessment: Pass/Fail.

The course is passed through active satisfactory participation in the course related activities. The evaluation of the students' participation considers the following criteria:

• Has the student established a sound theoretical and method- ological knowledge about the themes that have been pre- sented in the course?

• Can the student explain, define, and discuss different aspects of the course themes according to different types of con- texts, both nationally and internationally?

• Can the student analyse the themes presented in the course based on current methods and theories?

• Can the student identify and analyse social, political, cultural and political processes where the theoretical and methodo- logical insights into the course’s themes are relevant?

• Can the student analyse concrete cases using the theories, methods and approaches discussed in the course?

• Can the student critically reflect over how different theoreti- cal perspectives in the course can be applied to concrete problem solving in everyday life?