Challenges of Contemporary Culture

Code: LLT15882L

6 ECTS

Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours

Scientific Area: Literature

Teaching languages: Portuguese

Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese, English

Regime de Frequência: Presencial

Sustainable Development Goals

Educação de qualidade - Assegurar a educação inclusiva, e equitativa e de qualidade, e promover oportunidades de aprendizagem ao longo da vida para todos.

Learning Goals

1. To distinguish and integrate the two declinations of the concept of Culture: the science of custom and erudition.
2. To identify contemporary cultural products and phenomena, without pre-defined geographical boundaries.
3. To recognize specificities and understand, on a more superficial level, various aesthetic languages.
4. To know how to relate the intersections of different languages which, in the same object or phenomenon, contribute to its meaning.
5. To recognize, in order to intervene together, different cultural audiences

1. From erudition as the empirical reality of activities around culture to criticism focusing on the discourse on culture.
a) Problematization of concepts.
b) Globalization and diversity.
c) Multiculturalism and interculturality.
d) Nation and post-colonialism.
e) Mass communication and cultural industries.
f) Society and new technologies.
2. Art and Culture: culture, counter-culture, anti-culture and mainstream. Subcultures, urban cultures and cosmopolitanism.
3. Processes of artistic dissemination and the massification of culture. Culture and the media. Consumerism
and the industry. Communication strategies and artistic productions: kitsch, graffiti, pop culture, the bighit movie and the bestseller novel, crossover, pink novel, soap operas.
Cultural themes, reading themes
1. Glocalization: the presence of the local dimension in the production of a global culture.
2. Leisure, recreation and free time: misconceptions about erudition.
3. Contemporary acceleration.

Teaching Methods

Theoretical exposition and critical-comparative commentary on texts (and excerpts) from works in the theoretical reference bibliography; reading and commentary on texts (or excerpts) from literary works and works in other aesthetic languages (from the visual arts to the performing and audiovisual arts); oral interventions by students on the themes, contexts or intertextual or intermedial relationships of the corpus selected according to the profile of the student groups. Observation of situations in which contemporary culture is discussed on the basis of theoretical texts or texts with a critical edge, such as critical texts on specific cases of artistic creation and reception.

Assessment

Continuous assessment means that each student must take two assessment tests (50% each) during the academic term, in order to mobilize the thinking and learning developed over the course of the lessons. Continuous assessment requires attendance, in accordance with the Academic Regulations in force.
Assessment by exam consists of a written test taken during the exam season, with a weight of 100%, and can cover any point on the syllabus summarized in class.