124182 VK BEd 08b.3: VK Cultural Studies for Language Teachers (2021S)

The media shape and influence our images of the world, ourselves and other people. In this sense, they are part of our cultural identity, and they can exert incredible power. However, we can also use media products to change and challenge identities and social expectations. Race and ethnicity are among the central categories shaping personal and cultural identities, and they have been heavily debated, rejected and redefined in research in recent decades.

The course uses material from English and Anglophone Media like television series and movies, advertisement, viral videos, graphic novels, or news media to show how race and ethnicity are represented. We will discuss how the media can reinforce stereotypes, but equally how media products and their use and re-use can help to uncover harmful and discriminatory social practices and identities.

Among the questions we will tackle are:

1. How can we define race and ethnicity, and what is problematic about these terms?
   
2. How do contemporary media represent race and ethnicity and where and how do stereotypes figure in these representations? Are stereotypes reinforced or challenged?
   
3. What are strategies to 'read' and work with images of race and ethnicity in our daily lives and the lives of your pupils at school?
   
4. Where and how can you incorporate a critical assessment of media images of race and ethnicity in your classrooms and what are the challenges in such a use?
   
5. How can you integrate a critical analysis of media representations of race and/or ethnicity in an actual lesson plan?
   

Students will learn how to approach different mediations (e.g. comics, movies, internet memes and clips, television, advertisement) and representations of race and ethnicity and we will read key theoretical texts by Stuart Hall, Ania Loomba, Richard Dyer, and others.

The primary material of analysis is up to the group: you will have the opportunity to suggest and work with material of your own and you can pick which images and representations you work with in your lesson plans.