Undergraduate - UnitAZA2627 - Global and local cultures: Creating and consuming

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Offered	South Africa Second semester 2014 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Pier Frassinelli

Synopsis

Music, food, fashion, architecture and cinema are just a few of the cultural products that can be studied to analyse contemporary transnational cultural flows which are visible the world over. The unit looks at the implications of globalisation for a variety of cultural phenomena, tracing transitions from local to global cultural practices and investigating specific cases of local consumption of global cultures.

Outcomes

Students successfully completing the unit should have:

A deeper knowledge of the concepts of modernity and tradition, and the problems of cultural ownership and authenticity;
Acquired knowledge about the challenges to cultural nationalism by transnational cultural flows;
Studied some cases of cultural production and its local consumption, and critically analysed material relating to these case studies;
Improved their oral skills by participating in tutorial debate on specific instances of cultural flows and local identities created through their consumption;
Improved their written skills;
Developed independent research skills;
Developed the ability to critically assess the ideological implications of global cultural flows.