Module Information

Aims of the module:
a) to provide a secure grounding in key theories, critical approaches, methodologies, vocabularies and frameworks in the relevant fields: politics, media and performance.
b) to examine and enhance understanding of the forms, functions and roles of media and associated modes of cultural expression.
c) to examine and enhance understanding of the relevance of critical conceptualizations of the political.
d) to address and evaluate the form, function and potential of a range of media in the expression of ideas, analysis and ambitions, in both public and academic spheres.
e) to address and evaluate the role and impact of the political within processes of production, distribution and reception of the media.
f) to introduce and explore convergences – both extant and potential – between politics, media and performance.

Module content includes:

• an introduction to the range and reach of a variety of media and theoretical, critical and analytical approaches appropriate to their understanding; also to the conceptual and methodological procedures involved in their making;
• an introduction to theoretical and societal formulations of both the political and the political sphere within the contemporary world;
• a joint examination of the role and potential of the creative within the political and the political within the creative.
The content will be co-taught by staff from both departments and may be adjusted to capitalize upon the specific expertise of those delivering the module. A fortnightly 'Research Seminar' will accompany the module, offering support for the precise requirements of the modular assessment assignments and examining ways in which specific modular material might inform the choice and development of a research methodology towards in particular the final research project/dissertation, which may be submitted in a practice-based or written form.

Lecture-Seminar Content:
1. The politics of performance and the performance of politics: critical practice, context and exposition
2. The political and the performative: in theory and practice
3. Media discourse: modes, meanings and events
4. Representations: conventions, locations and formations of identity
5. Political aesthetics/aesthetic politics: critique and creativity and in performance, film and media
6. Cultural production: history, epistemology and technique in performance, film and media
7. Critical methods and approaches: practice-based research, fieldwork, applied research
8. Subjectivity and political community: performance and politics
9. Difference, discrimination and the performance of borders
10. The international, the global and the postcolonial in performance, media and politics

Research Seminar Content:
1. Critical Reading Practices
2. Practice-led Research
3. Practices of Representation
4. Practices of Presentation
5. Preparing Assessments