MA Intercultural Communication / Course details

This course is taught by a team of staff within Languages in the School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures, in different groupings depending on staff availability. It takes as its premise various key concepts relating to transnational identities such as diaspora, race, ethnicity, and the postcolonial, which are then studied in relation to specific texts/case studies. The aim is to illustrate the applicability of theoretical frameworks across cultural boundaries, and to illuminate the cultural specificity of each different history of migration. The course aims to illuminate core theoretical concerns of cultural migration studies and to encourage interdisciplinarity. Texts and case studies will be available in English where students do not have the relevant language skills. 

• Provide students with the opportunity to acquire an advanced understanding of the cultural consequences of migration and the formation of diaspora communities.
• To provide a thorough grounding in current theoretical approaches to diaspora, postcolonial and globalisation studies, as applied to specific cultural contexts.
• Through reading, the use of web resources as a research tool, seminar discussion and the writing of essays, to make students fully conversant with the methods of scholarly research in a humanities discipline and the resources necessary for such research. 

Have acquired an advanced knowledge of selected aspects of the migrant or diaspora cultures of one of more communities covered on the course.

Have developed an understanding of modern theoretical approaches to the advanced study of diaspora cultures.

Have mastered the essential skills necessary to pursue independent research in literary and cultural studies in relation to cultures of diaspora. These include analysis, argument, independent thinking and effective oral and written self-expression. (NB for students proceeding to doctoral research, the relevant language skills must be acquired).

Have demonstrated, through seminar discussion and the writing of an essay, their specialized knowledge of a chosen field, and their ability to analyse and evaluate material (including print and electronic resources) and to construct argument in an appropriately lucid, rigorous and scholarly manner.

Assessment task:

Essay - 100%

Resit assessment:

Essay

Feedback method:

• Written feedback on Turnitin for essay
• Oral feedback on discussion in class

Theoretical Frameworks  

General: 

Alcoff, Linda, Alcoff, Martin & Mendiata, Eduardo (eds), Identities: Race, Class, Gender and Nationality, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003 

Eriksen, J.H. Ethnicity and Nationalism, London: Pluto Press, 1993 

Transnationalism/Globlisation 

Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities, London: Verso: 1991 

Hardt, Michael & Negri, Antonio, Empire, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000 

Hybridity/Postcolonialism 

Bhabha, Homi K.  The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994 

Moore-Gilbert, Bart, Stanton, Gareth, & Maley, Willy (eds), Postcolonialist Criticism, London/NY: Longman, 1997 

Diaspora 

Evans Braziel, Jana & Mannur, Anita (eds), Theorizing Diaspora, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003 

Hall, Stuart & du Gay, Paul (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity, London: Sage, 1996 

Cultural Memory/Trauma/Testimonial 

Caruth, Cathy (ed), Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Baltimore: publisher? 1995 

Felman, Shoshana & Laub, Dori, Testimony. Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, London: Routledge, 1992 

The Politics of Language 

Edwards, J, Language, Society and Identity, London: Academic Press, 1984 

Hoffmann, C. Language, Culture and Communication in Contemporary Europe, London: Multilingual Matters, 1996 

Teaching begins with key theoretical concepts deployed in research into the cultures of migration, such as diaspora, globalisation, cosmopolitanism, postcolonial identities, and cultural memory. Specific texts/case studies will then be used to illustrate the use of these concepts, and to explore the extent to which they allow a cross-cultural comparison of specific histories of migration/border crossings.

The course will be taught by weekly 2-hour seminars from Weeks 1-9, with Essay workshops in weeks 10 and 11. Individual consultations about essays can be held with the relevant staff by appointment.