Time Schedule:
Kanta A Kochhar
BCULST 502
Bothell Campus
Focuses on interactions of ethnographic, textual, and performance-based research methods, with special emphasis on participatory action research strategies. Combines theoretical considerations and experimental learning. Prerequisite: BCLST 501. Offered: Sp.
Class description
Cultural Studies as Collaboration is the third required course in the core curriculum and provides an overview of key theories and practices of collaboration for cultural work of all stripes. There will be two strands in this course, the theoretical and the practical, but we will always be addressing points of intersection. We will investigate a series of cultural studies writers and their capacities for both theory and practice, drawing from Hall, McRuer, Taussig, Corker, Minh-ha, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, de Certeau, Bhabha, Spivak, Cixous, Grosz, and Taylor. Our growing familiarity with the skills of theory will be paralleled by gains in practical skill regarding a variety of approaches to collaboration as methods for solving problems, responding to issues, and creating new community practices across sectors. Specific emphasis will be placed on Homi Bhabha's notion of the "third space," as well as on Diana Taylor's work on the "archive and the repertoire."
Student learning goals
To gain an understanding of the basic tenets of cultural studies collaboration, its theories, and histories,
To develop a vocabulary and method for addressing and critiquing a variety of examples of collaborative practices,
To understand how collaborative approaches offer a platform for articulating and working the complexities of social, political, and cultural issues, particularly across national borders,
To link collaboration, politics, and ethics in relation to questions of cultural empowerment,
To understand how collaborative practices utilizes a range of communication formats, from the textual to the performative, and
To develop skills in documenting collaborative processes in relation to research, community-building, and the reflective work of the (academic and job) portfolio.
General method of instruction
Lecture, discussion
Recommended preparation
BCULST 500, 501
Class assignments and grading
