Teaching plan for the course unit (Short version)
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General information

 

Course unit name: Cultural Studies

Course unit code: 360938

Academic year: 2025-2026

Coordinator: Maria Victoria Sanchez Belando

Department: Department of Sociology

Credits: 3

Single program: S

Estimated learning time

Total number of hours 75

 

Face-to-face and/or online activities

30

	-  Lecture with practical component	Face-to-face		15
	-  Problem-solving class	Face-to-face		15

Supervised project

15

Independent learning

30

Learning objectives

Referring to knowledge Understand and engage with cultural studies conducted from a multidisciplinary perspective within the social sciences and humanities, with particular attention to the sociological approach to the study of culture. Critically evaluate different theoretical and methodological approaches that have addressed culture at the intersection of sociology, anthropology, and the humanities. Analyse critically the relationships between power, inequality and cultural practices.

 

 

Teaching blocks

 

1. Cultural Studies: a multidisciplinary field

*  The first block addresses the study of culture from the perspectives afforded by the social sciences and the humanities. This involves the study of the epistemological make-up of cultural studies and the various approaches taken to the discipline as a specific field of analysis within a much broader sphere of knowledge production. The block critically analyses the content "philologisation" of this theoretical and methodological corpus and examines the contribution of sociology to its development and to that of cultural studies more generally, highlighting the multidisciplinary nature of the research agenda that has emerged in the discipline.

2. Areas of Analysis and Methodological Strategies

*  The second block addresses various lines of research — both thematic and methodological — within cultural studies, but does not limit itself to the traditional boundaries of the discipline. This includes engagement with a variety of issues, including the role played by processes of identity construction in contexts of social and cultural change; cultural objects and identities and the values they convey; the influence of the mass media and cultural industries on processes of socialization and the shaping of sociocultural practices in both public and private life; the relationship between cultural practices, consumption and inequality; expressions of popular culture; forms of cultural participation, and the aestheticization of the territory.

 

 

Official assessment of learning outcomes

 

Continuous assessment Continuous assessment is based on the following activities: Submission of individual assignments or exercises, aimed at evaluating the process of assimilating the course content (60% of the overall grade). Active and demonstrable participation throughout the sessions (both in-person and online), including such activities as presentations of specific topics and engaging in debates on the course content (40% of the overall grade).   Examination-based assessment The single mode of assessment consists of an individual examination covering all the topics taught on the course (40%), an individual assignment focusing on one of the course themes (30%) and the completion of reviews of all the assigned course readings (30%). Full details of both modes of assessment are available in the course programme. The procedure for repeat assessment adheres to the same format as that for the single mode of assessment.

Reading and study resources

Check availability in Cercabib

Book

BARKER, Martin.; BEEZER, Anne. Reading into cultural studies. London: Routledge, 1992

Catàleg UB  

BOURDIEU, Pierre. El sentido social del gusto: elementos para una sociología de la cultura. Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, cop. 2010

Catàleg UB  

GROSSBERG, Lawrence. Estudios culturales: teoría, política y práctica. Valencia: Letra Capital, 2010

Catàleg UB  

MATTELART, Armand.; NEVEU, Erik. Introducción a los estudios culturales. Barcelona [etc.]: Paidós, cop. 2011

Catàleg UB  

PICKERING, Michael. Research methods for cultural studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, cop. 2014

Catàleg UB  

STOREY, John. Cultural theory and popular culture: an introduction. 8th ed. Harlow: Pearson, 2018

Catàleg UB  
Catàleg UB. Versió en castellà (2002)  

BANDELJ, N. and WHERRY, F. (eds) (2011). The Cultural Wealth of Nations. Stanford University Press.

Catàleg UB  

BOLTANSKI, Luc and ESQUERRE, Arnaud. 2020. Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities. Polity Press.

Catàleg UB  

DENORA, Tia. 1997. Beethoven and the Construction of Genius. Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Catàleg UB  

MOLOTCH, Harvey. 2003. Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Computers, and Many other Things Come to be as They Are, Routledge, Nueva York.

Catàleg UB  

SANTANA-ACUÑA, Alvaro. 2020. Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Written and Became a Global Classic, Columbia University Press.

Article

BURGETT, B., et al. The affirmative character of cultural studies. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2013, vol. 16, núm 4, p. 419-439.

CHI HYUN PARK, J. Fighting women in contemporary asian cinema: the celebration of the inauthentic in My Wife is a Gangster and Chocolate. Cultural Studies, 2012, vol. 27, núm. 2, p. 242-256.

STOREY, J.; MCDONALD, K. Love’s best habit: the uses of media in romantic relationships. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2014, vol. 17, núm. 2, p. 113-125.

SEFAI, S.; COULDRY, N. Mediating the presence of others. Reconceptualising co-presence as mediated intimacy. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2017, vol. 22, núm. 3, p. 219-308

https://journals-sagepub-com.sire.ub.edu/doi/full/10.1177/1367549417743040  

HESMONDHALGH, David and PRATT, Andy C. 2005. “Cultural Industries and Cultural Policy.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 11 (11): 1–13.

MANUEL, Peter. 2014. “The Regional North Indian Popular Music Industry in 2014: From Cassette Culture to Cyberculture.” Popular Music 33 (3): 389–412.

NAVARRO, Clemente J, and Terry N CLARK. 2012. “Cultural Policy in European Cities: An Analysis from the Cultural Agenda of Mayors.” European Societies 14 (5): 636–59.

PRATT, Andy C. 2004. “The Cultural Economy: A Call for Spatialized ‘Production of Culture’ Perspectives.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 7 (1): 117–28.

VALTYSSON, Bjarki. 2010. “Access Culture: Web 2.0 and Cultural Participation.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 16 (2): 200–214.

WILLIS, Paul. 2003. “Dialectics of Cultural Consumption and the 21st-Century School.” Harvard Educational Review 73 (3): 390–416.