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Popular Culture: From K-pop to Selfies (CULS20018)
Undergraduate level 2Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
For information about the University’s phased return to campus and in-person activity in Winter and Semester 2, please refer to the on-campus subjects page.
About this subject
- Overview
- Eligibility and requirements
- Assessment
- Dates and times
- Further information
- Timetable(opens in new window)
Contact information
Semester 1
Please refer to the LMS for up-to-date subject information, including assessment and participation requirements, for subjects being offered in 2020.
Overview
Availability | Semester 1 |
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Fees | Look up fees |
Popular culture shapes how we think and feel, how we relate to one another; in short, how we imagine and live our lives. This subject examines the dynamics between popular culture, media consumption, and our social worlds. It will draw on students’ own consumption of popular culture as entry points to explore the various roles mass-mediated popular culture plays in our lives. From pop music and blockbuster films to viral videos, memes and selfies, this course interrogates: How can we define what is ‘popular’? What do debates about popular culture tell us about current political anxieties? And how does popular culture maintain, reproduce or challenge our existing social and political formations within and across cultures in an increasingly globalized world? The subject is organized around a series of questions about production, regulation and consumption that will introduce students to a range of key concepts in cultural studies. The goal is to familiarise students with debates in cultural studies about the politics of mass culture, popular culture and viral culture, drawing from examples of both twentieth century and contemporary computer-mediated cultural practices.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate a developing knowledge in current research on a range of specific instances of or practices in popular culture.
- Understand the importance of the ways in which Cultural Studies has theorized popular culture.
- Engage critically with scholarly approaches to the circuit of culture model covering the production, regulation and consumption of mass cultural forms
- Demonstrate developing understanding of the relationships between particular examples of popular cultures and broader cultural and political formations in an increasingly globalized world
- Effectively use research skills to produce a research essay based on a case study in the field of popular culture that demonsrates the capacity for detailed description and reflective analysis.
- Understand the disciplinary specificity of Cultural Studies approaches to popular culture and popular media their inter-relationship with approaches in related disciplines.
Generic skills
- Apply critical and analytical skills and methods to the identification and resolution of problems within complex changing social contexts.
- Apply an independent approach to knowledge that uses rigorous methods of inquiry and appropriate theories and methodologies that are applied with intellectual honesty and a respect for ethical values;
- Articulate the relationship between diverse forms of knowledge and the social, historical and cultural contexts that produced them;
- Act as informed and critically discerning participants within the community of scholars, as citizens and in the work force.
Last updated: 19 March 2024
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Recommended background knowledge
Understanding of Cultural Studies as a disciplinary formation, as taught in CULS10005
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 19 March 2024
Assessment
Due to the impact of COVID-19, assessment may differ from that published in the Handbook. Students are reminded to check the subject assessment requirements published in the subject outline on the LMS
Semester 1
Description | Timing | Percentage |
---|---|---|
Blog
| From Week 2 to Week 12 | 30% |
Essay
| Mid semester | 30% |
Research essay
| End of the teaching period | 40% |
Tutorial attendance Hurdle requirement: This subject has a minimum hurdle requirement of 80% attendance and regular participation in tutorials. Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at 10% per day. In-class tasks missed without approval will not be marked. All pieces of written work must be submitted to pass this subject. | Throughout the teaching period | N/A |
Last updated: 19 March 2024
Dates & times
- Semester 1
Principal coordinator T Evans Mode of delivery On Campus (Parkville) Contact hours 12 x 1.5 hour Lecture, and 12 x 1 hour Tutorial per week Total time commitment 170 hours Teaching period 2 March 2020 to 7 June 2020 Last self-enrol date 13 March 2020 Census date 30 April 2020 Last date to withdraw without fail 5 June 2020 Assessment period ends 3 July 2020 Semester 1 contact information
Time commitment details
140
Last updated: 19 March 2024
Further information
- Texts
Prescribed texts
There are no specifically prescribed or recommended texts for this subject.
- Breadth options
This subject is available as breadth in the following courses:
- Bachelor of Biomedicine
- Bachelor of Commerce
- Bachelor of Design
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Animation)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Film and Television)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Music Theatre)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Screenwriting)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Theatre)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art)
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Science
- Available through the Community Access Program
About the Community Access Program (CAP)
This subject is available through the Community Access Program (also called Single Subject Studies) which allows you to enrol in single subjects offered by the University of Melbourne, without the commitment required to complete a whole degree.
Entry requirements including prerequisites may apply. Please refer to the CAP applications page for further information.
- Available to Study Abroad and/or Study Exchange Students
This subject is available to students studying at the University from eligible overseas institutions on exchange and study abroad. Students are required to satisfy any listed requirements, such as pre- and co-requisites, for enrolment in the subject.
Last updated: 19 March 2024