Universität Wien

124010 VO Introduction to Cultural Theories (2025W)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 12 - Anglistik

Please note: prerequisites apply in order to participate in the corresponding lecture exam. The modules/study programmes with which you can sign up for the exam are indicated at the bottom of the page. For questions that arise after reading through these prerequisites, please contact the SSS Anglistik directly.
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).
Register/Deregister for this course

Details

Language: English

Examination dates

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Please note that the session on 28 October will be digital (no in-person session)
There will be no session on 18 November

In-person attendance is not mandatory for this course as attendance is not part of the grade (exam sitting only). The readings and PowerPoint slides will be provided on Moodle and these materials form the basis for the final examination. However, attendance is strongly advised for important clarification and context of these materials, and the opportunity to ask the lecturer directly about anything that is unclear, especially as lectures are in-person only (not hybrid or recorded) and no tutorial will be offered for the VO.

  • Tuesday 07.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 14.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 21.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 28.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Digital
  • Tuesday 04.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 11.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 25.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 02.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 09.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 16.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 13.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 20.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03
  • Tuesday 27.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C2 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-K1-03

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This lecture course will introduce students to the field of Cultural Theories. Together, we will explore the most important theoretical models and perspectives of the fields of British Cultural Studies, Semiotics, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Structuralism, Gender, Sexuality, Race, Class, Disability, and the Nonhuman in lecture sessions. These investigations will be grounded in practical examples focused on, but not limited to, cultural practices, visual culture and popular media (film, television, advertisements, music, computer games, digital media, memes, fashion, subcultures, lived cultures, etc.). By this process, students will be provided with the critical tools (theoretical, analytical, historical) necessary to analyze and evaluate cultural practices, phenomena and media for what it reveals about:
(1) the processes of meaning making in the production and consumption of cultural artifacts and practices
(2) the inter-related dynamics of representation, knowledge, power, and subjectivity; and
(3) the intersectional social categories of race, gender, class, ability, and the nonhuman.

Here is a list of some of the most central theorists we will discussed in detail:
Matthew Arnold, F. R. Leavis, Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, John Storey, Pierre Bourdieu, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Laura Mulvey, Jackie Stacey, Marx/Engels, Theodor Adorno, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Walter Benjamin, Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Ferdinand de Saussure, Vladimir Propp, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Will Wright, Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Vito Russo, Slavoj Žižek, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Donna Haraway, Katherine N. Hayles, Val Plumwood.

Here is a list of some of the most central concepts we will discussed in detail:
High/Low/Mass/Popular/Lived Cultures; The Politics of Taste; Ideology; Discourse; Semiotics; Articulation; The Structure of Feeling; Aura; The Society of the Spectacle; Postmodernism and Pastiche; Simulacra, Simulation and Hyperrealism; Convergence/Participatory Culture; Post-Media; The Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego; The Real, The Imaginary, and The Symbolic; The Male Gaze; Base/Superstructure; Interpellation and The Problematic; Hegemony; Denotation, Connotation, Myth; Gender Essentialism, Patriarchy, Heteronormativity; Orientalism; Animal Studies, Eco-Criticism, Cyborg Studies, Posthumanism; Disability Studies.

Assessment and permitted materials

Final written exam (90 mins)
Onsite exam: No supportive sources allowed (= no dictionaries, scripts)
Part 1: Answer 8 out of 10 short questions (1 paragraph; bullet points)
Part 2: Essay question analysing a text/image.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

All content uploaded to Moodle and covered in the lecture series will be relevant for the final exam, which will count for the entirety of the participant's grade. The benchmark for passing the exam is at 60%.
Grades in %:
1 (very good): 90-100
2 (good): 80-89
3 (satisfactory): 70-79
4 (pass): 60-69
5 (fail): 0-59

Examination topics

The material provided in the required secondary reading, lectures and PowerPoint slides. All study-material (PowerPoints and texts) will be provided on the Moodle e-learning platform.

Reading list

Roland Barthes, "Myth Today"
Jean Baudrillard: "The Precession of Simulacra" [Excerpt]
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Pierre Bourdieu, "The Aristocracy of Taste"
Judith Butler, "From Interiority to Gender Performatives" in Gender Trouble
Daniel Chandler, "Semiotics for Beginners"
Michel Foucault, "We Other Victorians", in The History of Sexuality Volume 1
Michel Foucault, "The Repressive Hypothesis: The Incitement to Discourse", in The History of Sexuality Volume 1
Judy Giles and Tim Middleton, "What is Culture?"
Jack Halberstam, "Female Masculinity"
Stuart Hall, "On Postmodernism and Articulation"
bell hooks, "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators"
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”
Douglas Kellner "Cultural Marxism and Cultural Studies"
Lawrence Lessig, "Remix"
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Val Plumwood, "Feminism and the Mastery of Nature"
Edward Said, "Orientalism"
Susan Sontag, "One Culture and the New Sensibility"
John Storey, "Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction"
John Storey, "What is Popular Culture?"
Raymond Williams, "Culture"
Raymond Williams, "The Analysis of Culture"

Association in the course directory

Studium: BA 612, EC 125, EC 126;
Code/Modul: BA07.2;
Lehrinhalt: 12-4030

Last modified: Th 26.02.2026 09:26