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Root number
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489689 |
Semester
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HS2024 |
Type of course
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Lecture |
Allocation to subject
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English Languages and Literatures |
Type of exam
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not defined |
Title |
Language and Symbolic Power: Reading Bourdieu (BA FS & MA Lecture Linguistics) (UNGRADED) |
Description |
Given the zeitgeist, it feels like a very good moment to engage with the scholarship of Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002). One of the most important social scientists of the C20th, Bourdieu was not only an academic but a major cultural critic and also, somewhat reluctantly or undecidedly, a political activist. Born into a working-class family in the southwest of France, Bourdieu went on to study philosophy and anthropology before settling as a sociologist. He was a prolific writer with an enormous oeuvre of more than 25 books and 300 articles or essays.
Not without his detractors and critics, Bourdieu’s influence has been vast. Ranked as world’s most cited sociologist, for example, he is also ranked as the second most cited author in social sciences and the humanities (after Michel Foucault). His work has certainly had an undeniable impact on sociocultural linguistics which, like Bourdieu, is centrally concerned with the powerful, power-filled role of language in everyday cultural, social and political life.
In this reading-intensive lecture course we will survey a selection (sic) of Bourdieu’s most enduring conceptual interventions – most notably, cultural capital, cultural reproduction, habitus, field, and symbolic violence. By way of reflexive practice, we will also consider Bourdieu’s thinking about the role of scientists/academics in public life and his complex, contradictory views on political intervention. The course in no way offers a comprehensive overview of Bourdieu’s scholarship; the goal is rather to highlight – and by way of case-study examples – how his ideas are typically taken up by sociolinguistics, discourse analysts, and other sociocultural linguists.
Required Reading: The lecture is organized as a “guided reading” course which means it hinges on a series of readings to be completed before each session. These readings will be posted as PDFs on ILIAS. Your success depends on your having demonstrated an engagement with and core understanding of the readings (see Assessment).
After Week 1, the course is divided into five fortnightly modules. In the first week of each module there will be a piece of Bourdieu’s own work to read – a framing reading – and a short pre-lecture survey to complete. In the second week of each module there will be a case-study reading and a reading quiz to complete (started at home and then finished in the session).
For Week 1, there is both a framing reading and a case-study reading to complete before coming to the first session. For the framing reading you will need to complete the online pre-lecture survey by 17:00 on Friday 13 September; for the case-study reading you will need to print out a quiz template, answer four or five questions, and then bring it to the first session for completion and submission.
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1999). The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society [trans. P. P. Ferguson et al.]. Stanford University Press. (extracts only)
Swartz, David L. (2003). From critical sociology to public intellectual: Pierre Bourdieu
and politics. Theory and Society, 32, 791-823. |
ILIAS-Link (Learning resource for course)
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Registrations are transmitted from CTS to (no admission in ILIAS possible).
ILIAS
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Link to another web site
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Lecturers |
Prof. Dr.
Crispin Thurlow, Institute of English Languages and Literatures, Language and Communication ✉
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ECTS
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3 |
Recognition as optional course possible
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Yes |
Grading
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passed/failed |
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Dates |
Tuesday 12:15-14:00 Weekly
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Tuesday 3/12/2024 12:15-15:00
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Rooms |
Hörraum F 021, Hörraumgebäude Unitobler
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Seminarraum F -104, Hörraumgebäude Unitobler
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Students please consult the detailed view for complete information on dates, rooms and planned podcasts. |