British Cultural History - Detailseite

This lecture will introduce students to British and Anglophone cultural history from the Early Modern period to the present. The lecture will provide a comprehensive overview of historical epochs and major social, political and economic developments and explore the cultural forms emerging during each epoch. These include literature, theatre, the emergence of British cinema, broadcasting, and popular music as well as the role of present-day social media.

Students will be introduced to the major theoretical and methodological concepts of cultural studies and how they can be used to historicise British culture. The lecture will be guided by the following questions: 1) how does culture intersect with society and politics and how is a sense of a particular “British” national culture shaped throughout history? What are the signifying practices that generate meaning in each epoch? What media emerge throughout history? What are the conflict zones that complicate coherent and homogeneous narratives of national cultures, such as social class, race and ethnicity, sexuality and gender, parliament vs. monarchy, internal and global conflicts, political devolution and the question of the British state? How can cultural studies account for the plurality of cultures, including youth cultures, postcolonial, migrant and globalised cultures, intra- and transnational cultures (immigration, devolution)?

At the end of this lecture, students will…

• be familiar with major developments, events and epochs of British social and cultural history and their afterlives in cultural representations today
• be familiar with the history, terminology, concepts and theories of cultural studies
• be able to critically analyse, contextualise and historicise phenomena, events and artefacts from British cultural history

Relevant texts will be announced during the first session. A selection of texts will be available on Moodle.