Media Materialities

Course goals

This course aims to develop interdisciplinary methodological approaches to illuminate the role of materiality and mediality in the formation of cultural and aesthetic meaning.

Content

What is ‘materiality’ in literature, arts, and media, and what role does it play in creative processes? This course offers interdisciplinary perspectives on matter and materiality. It begins with theories of things, words, images, sounds, textures, and media technologies in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. We then explore perspectives derived from these theories through creative practice across cultures and species. How do such material practices open and, if so, change calcified understandings of creative activity?

Additional information

This seminar is a compulsory part of the Research MA Comparative Literary Studies; it is an elective for students in the following Research Master programmes: Gender Studies; Media and Performance; Religious Studies. It is open to exchange students at MA level in Comparative Literature and related Humanities fields.

Career orientation
Specifically: students are made aware of the professionalisation of culture, both in theory and practice. Generally: this course serves as preparation for a PhD programme in the Humanities as well as for non-academic careers, by training the following transferable skills: critical thinking and writing, discourse analysis, peer-review and advanced language skills.

Early Exit option for international exchange students (5 ECTS)
 
Exchange students who are required to return to their home university before January, are allowed to choose an Early Exit option for this course. The Early Exit option means that students can finish the course before Christmas break, receiving 5 ECTS for the course. Students must make arrangements with the course coordinator at the start of the course.