MA Creative and Cultural Industries / Course details

This course unit looks at the relationship between creative and cultural industries, geography and place and considers how creative practices and cultural economies are deployed within place-making and as strategies for economic and sustainable development around the world. Taking an interdisciplinary lens, the literature-based course draws on global case studies from economic and cultural geography, sociology, policy studies, arts and humanities, and creative practice. Assessment will comprise the development of a place-based or related strategy and reflective blogpost. The course unit will be relevant to scholars of creative industries, arts management, heritage and museum studies, cultural policy, and also urban, planning and development studies.  

• To introduce key concepts and literatures which support critical analysis and understanding of the relationships between culture, creativity and place  

• To develop a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of issues and debates relating to local, national and international policy and practice in the CCIs 

• To critically interpret and evaluate case studies of creative geographies and place-based cultural strategies which employ arts, creative and cultural industries to change and shape places 

Week 1 – introduction/group project set-up; critical keywords for creative places and place-making 

Week 2 – creative cities – their origins and discontents + field trip to Salford 

Week 3 – cultural flows and policy transfers – trans-local cultural ecosystems 

Week 4 – rural creative industries and economic diversification + field trip to Wales 

Week 5 – perusing the peri-urban – suburban culture, small cities, towns and other non-places 

Week 6 – presentations discussion and evaluation  

Creative Places will comprise 6 weekly lectures, augmented by individual-led discussion and group work within two hour seminars. We will also feature two fieldwork visits to examples of different creative industries led regeneration and cultural geographies.  

Students will develop in small groups a presentation project which will require the use of audio-visual digital content to present and critically evaluate a chosen case study. They will also receive feedback and guidance through individual and group tutorials, and will also have access to online synchronous and asynchronous learning materials and resources, including Spark pages and participatory tools and quizzes.  

Assessment will comprise (1) the presentation of pre-recorded group case study using suitable digital creative content (VoiceThread, Video, podcast, Tik Tok) for peer review and discussion (2) individual essay on selected essay title.  

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of contemporary issues and debates concerning place-making, local economic development, regeneration and place-based strategies relating to arts, creative and cultural industries 

• Develop knowledge and understanding of the processes through which creative industries and cultural strategies are employed in local, national and international policy and practice contexts 

• Undertake self-directed learning and skills acquisition  

• Develop critical awareness and understanding and be able to compare, review and evaluate strategic investment and evidence-based policy making in a range of geographic and institutional contexts 

• Develop and apply relevant research and analytical skills and identify and interpret relevant data through independent research in order to develop case studies 

• Communicate complex research findings through clear written and verbal articulation, supported by appropriate technological tools 

• Achieve an advanced and critically informed level of group work. 

• Plan and deliver effective presentations of written, visual and verbal communication to specialist and non-specialist audiences 

• Retrieve, select and critically evaluate information from a variety of on- and off-line sources, using appropriate information technology 

• Orchestrate group work in disciplinary and multi-disciplinary contexts, and work constructively within a team. 

• Tutorials (Formative)
• Essay proposal (Formative)
• Verbal and written feedback on presentation (Summative)
• Essay assignment (Summative)

Bell, D & Jayne, M (2007) Small Cities: Urban Experience Beyond the Metropolis, London: Routledge 

Durrer, D. Gilmore, A., Stevenson, D & Jancovich, L. (2019)   Situating the local in global cultural policy, Cultural Trends, 28:4, 265-268, DOI: 10.1080/09548963.2019.1644780 

Evans, G (2009) Creative spaces and the art of urban living in Edensor, T et al. Spaces of vernacular creativity: rethinking the cultural economy London : Routledge : Taylor & Francis  

Finnegan, R, (1989) "Introductory: the Existence and Study of Local Music" from Finnegan, Ruth, The Hidden Musicians: Music Making in an English Town pp.1-30, Cambridge,: Cambridge University Press. [30] 

Florida, R. (2008) Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life New York: Basic Books, Inc.  

Florida, R. (2014) Chapter 3 “The Creative Class” in The Rise of the Creative Class – Revisited Basic Books; First Trade Paper Edition  

Gilmore, A. (2013) Cold spots, crap towns and cultural deserts: The role of place and geography in cultural participation and creative place-making, Cultural Trends, Volume 22 

Gornostaeva, G. & Campbell, N. (2012) The Creative Underclass in the Production of Place: Example of Camden Town in London, Journal of Urban Affairs, 34:2, 169-188, DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9906.2012.00609.x 

Lee, D. & Gilmore, A. (2012) ‘Mapping cultural assets and evaluating significance: theory, methodology and practice’ Cultural Trends Vol. 21, No. 1, March 2012, 3–28 

Massey, Doreen (1991). "A Global Sense of Place." Marxism Today (June 1991): 24-29.  

McGuigan, J (2009) 'Doing a Florida thing: the creative class thesis and cultural policy‘, International Journal of Cultural Policy,15:3, 291-300 

Moss, L (2002) ‘Sheffield’s Cultural Industries Quarter 20 years on: what can be learned from a pioneering example?’, International Journal of Cultural Policy Vol 8 No 2  

Pratt, A. C. (2008). "Creative cities: The cultural industries and the creative class." Geografiska Annaler Series B-Human Geography 90B(2): 107-117  

Pratt, A.C.(2009) Policy transfer and the field of the cultural and creative industries: Learning from Europe? in Kong, L. and O'Connor, J. (eds.) Creative Economies, Creative Cities: Asian-European Perspectives. Heidelberg, Germany, Springer: 9-23.