MA Cultural Studies

The dissertation is a core component of all Masters programmes at SOAS. The supervised dissertation research requires the ability to work independently on an original piece of research, to demonstrate familiarity with the relevant literature and present the resulting dissertation in a clear and organised format. The research and writing of the Masters dissertation is a crucial component of Research-based Masters training. The dissertation has a 10,000 word limit and counts for 33% of the overall degree. For details on presentation and submission dates, see the Postgraduate Taught Masters Handbook.

This module offers a thorough grounding in the origins and development of Cultural Studies as a field, as well as an exploration of the various methodologies employed in the study of cultural production, the media, and the construction of every-day life. The works of key thinkers and practitioners in the field will be examined, alongside their use of critical lenses including identity, race, ideology, power, class, and representation, as well as questions of institutionalisation and disciplinarity. The module aims to test the applicability of these theories and approaches in the contexts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, as well as diasporic situations.

This module builds on the insights gained in Cultural Studies: Origins, Development, Methodologies, by focusing explicitly on the ongoing development of Cultural Studies as a field in specifically non-Western contexts. It investigates the evolution of the field's critical mission and its originary focus on the cultural distribution of power, and the ethical, moral and political questions raised by that focus. It does so by offering a series of key case studies drawing on cutting-edge work in, from and on the cultures of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, as well as their diasporas around the world, and invites students to work and learn collaboratively and experientially, putting their analytical insights to use in novel and ground-breaking ways.

This module outlines the development of African Philosophy in the 20th century, a discourse that hinges on the following questions: does philosophy exist in Africa? What are the specific qualities that distinguish it from Western philosophy? We will survey the trends in African philosophical thought classified under the rubrics of ethnophilosophy", "nationalist-ideological philosophy", "sage philosophy", and "professional philosophy", and discuss specific concepts with philosophical reference or resonance, such as race, time, but also development or art. Several classes will be devoted to influential contemporary philosophers, in particular Paulin Hountondji, Kwame Anthony Appiah, V.-Y. Mudimbe, Henry Odera Oruka, and Kwasi Wiredu."

This module will introduce students to postcolonial literary studies through two key conceptions of identity: race and gender. The module will engage with the contemporary postcolonial novel (to be updated yearly), as it engenders critical insight into race and racism, gender and sexual identity and their intersections. It will introduce students to the vocabulary of critical race and gender theories as well as intersectionality as part of the development of literary analytic and critical reading skills. At the end of the module, students will be proficient in literary analysis and have a familiarity with key concepts in postcolonial studies.

This module introduces students to ethnographic studies in and of a particular region in Sub-Saharan Africa, its resident populations, and its diasporas, viewed through a variety of interconnected topics that have been important in the anthropological literature. With a particular focus on West Africa, East Africa, or Southern Africa, students will have the opportunity to explore classic and contemporary anthropological themes such as social organization, political economy, religion, gender and sexuality, race/ethnicity, personhood, the body, consumption, labour and livelihoods, violence and justice, and social identities, as they take shape in particular locales. The module also encourages students to consider how anthropological and historical understandings help us to recognize the fundamentally interconnected and global nature of any nation, subregion, or region, whose boundaries are often designated or shift as a result of colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial social processes and power relations.

This course enriches the existing range of courses on Islamic art and architecture by considering a wide range of artefacts within the particular perspective of cultural contacts with Europe, examining the ways in which Islamic artefacts were acquired, appreciated, utilized and imitated, and placing them also within the wider framework of the developing European intellectual awareness of Islam.

How might we understand art as a site of politics?  In this module we consider how visual artists and art collectives have taken positions on political change in Africa since the early twentieth century, spanning from anti-colonial resistance and the struggle against apartheid to the Arab Spring and Rhodes Must Fall movement.  Through case studies ranging from early portrait photography in West Africa to recent live art protests, we think through aesthetic approaches to the political.

This module introduces history, theory and methodology in the study of Taiwan cinema through examining key works by major filmmakers from Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora as well as the socio-cultural condition of their production, distribution, exhibition and consumption. Special attention will be paid to issues such as the construction of local and national identities through film, national film historiography, as well as mainstream and alternative film practices.

This module will introduce students to the growing field of world literature. It will broadly survey contemporary theoretical discussions in the field through two major entry points: language and translation and movement and identity.

This module aims to introduce students to the major debates and topics in the fields of Comparative Literature. It aims to develop critical understandings of the field and its place alongside other theoretical approaches to the study of literature.

This module will continue the work from Comparative Literature: Methodology and Critique, although it is its own free-standing module. In this term, the focus will be on the various cutting edges of the field. To accommodate this, the module will be updated every year, but example topics might include themes such as: decolonization, queer theory; intermediality; and digital humanities.

The aim of this course is to offer a historical and critical survey of contemporary gender theory in order to explore the challenge of gender studies for interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research. It will further examine the interface between gender theory and a variety of other theoretical perspectives applied to the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, including postcolonialism, critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism. The course will also investigate central questions of epistemology and methodology in relation to the application of gender theories in the field of cross-cultural studies. Students will be introduced to feminist and gender theory research methods and hermeneutics in order to develop research and interpretive skills for undertaking their own quantitative and qualitative research.

The aim of this course is to offer a historical and critical survey of contemporary gender theory in order to explore the challenge of gender studies for interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research. It will further examine the interface between gender theory and a variety of other theoretical perspectives applied to the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, including postcolonialism, critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism. The course will also investigate central questions of epistemology and methodology in relation to the application of gender theories in the field of cross-cultural studies. Students will be introduced to feminist and gender theory research methods and hermeneutics in order to develop research and interpretive skills for undertaking their own quantitative and qualitative research.

This module is concerned with South Africa's tumultuous twentieth-century history. It commences with the reconstruction of the South African state following the end of the South African War (1899-1902), and examines the respective origins and consequences of formal segregation (1910s - 1930s) and apartheid (1940s - 1980s). It is especially concerned with the ways in which ordinary Africans negotiated daily life within the strictures of these forms of state repression. A significant part of the module is concerned with the emergence of African nationalism, resistance to apartheid, and the collapse of the apartheid state at the end of the twentieth century, a conflict that engulfed all of southern Africa.

This module addresses the historical emergence of the ‘Chinese nation’. It focuses on socio-cultural identity as well as the ideological frameworks which were employed by different political regimes to promote the concept of China as a modern nation state. It begins with an analysis of the changing relationship between the Han majority, the ruling Manchu elite and the other major ethnic groups forming the Qing empire (1644-1911). It subsequently examines the panoply of new intellectual currents at the turn of the twentieth century, and political responses to the volatile situation following the transition to the Republic of China. The module analyses the tension between socialist internationalism, modern nationalism and traditional Chinese values, while focusing on differing interpretations of ‘Chinese tradition’ during the early People’s Republic.

This module explores the interrelationship of gender and empire in China's early modern history. The term 'early modern' is an undefined concept in Chinese history, but our focus will be on the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, straddling the transition from the Ming to Qing dynasties. This period saw significant territorial expansion by the Chinese state, a process we study through the lens of gender. This includes aspects such as the political appropriation of social customs by the state (the cult of chastity being a prime example), the social world of the patriarchal family, and the cultural realm of courtesans and male scholars. Linked to these areas of enquiry are questions about homoeroticism, non-normative gender expressions, transactions in people, and changing views on female suicide. Key themes we explore relate to how these different gendered experiences were intertwined with the history of state building and imperial expansion.

This module provides a critical understanding of the theoretical and conceptual approaches to the relationship between communication, culture, arts and politics in the Middle East.

A central component of globalization is the mass movements of people and the consequent growth of a variety of communities and networks whose lives are played out across and beyond national borders. Media and communications are central to the lives and practices of such collectivities and take many different forms. Many diasporas have developed a range of media channels to bind members and maintain connection with the homeland. Religious communities are amongst the biggest transnational media players, for example in the development of Christian broadcasting channels or the multiplicity of sites for Koranic interpretation on the Net.

International Political Communication

In this module, selections of Palestinian writings in different genres will be read and analysed as exemplars of literary responses to a situation of alienation and displacement, with particular focus on tradition and innovation, the construction and maintenance of identity, coping strategies and the evolving social function of literature in the context of the current conflict.

The module will offer a survey of films from the Arab world, Turkey, Iran, and Israel, as well as an overview of the historical development of film in the region and a grounding in the socio-cultural contexts in which films have been produced. Films will be analysed aesthetically, with an awareness of multiple aspects of film technique, and meanings will be interrogated through a number of interdisciplinary and theoretical prisms.

This is a course on culture in contemporary South Asia that highlights the multiple forms, languages, and avenues of cultural production; the relationship between local, national, and transnational/global domains; and the remix and reuse of older repertoires and forms in contemporary situations. During the first half of the term the course will introduce key elements of cultural theory and their application to South Asian contexts and materials and problematise the notion of national culture, while noting the ways in which nation-states in South Asia produce and broadcast particular cultural models. During the second half of the term the course will focus on challenges to and complications of these models through instances of cultural and political activism, changing concepts of 'legitimate language', and non-state media production.

The module will examine an array of examples and forms of resistance literature from South Asia, and may include anticolonial, Dalit, feminist and LGBTQ narratives, political satire and protest literatures, across both prose and poetry.

The module will examine key issues pertaining to the representation of genders and sexualities in a selection of films made by South East Asian filmmakers.

The so-called ‘resurgence’ of religion in the public sphere in recent decades is now a significant area of interdisciplinary scholarship eliciting a complex array of responses, ranging from vehement opposition to the very idea that religious concepts and commitments have a right to expression in public, political debates to a reassessment of the provenance and implications of divisions between the secular and the religious and their relationship to the nation state. The current geopolitical landscape wherein ‘religion’ has become a force to be reckoned with has demanded a reassessment of once predominant understandings of processes of secularisation, as well as the meanings of, and tensions inherent within, secular assumptions and secularist positions. The notion that there is no singular secularism, but rather a plurality of secularisms, and of religion as an invention of European modernity and colonialist exigencies are two of many emerging efforts to reconceptualise the meanings of religion and the secular and the entangled relationship between them. This course will offer a comprehensive overview of the various debates around the nature of the secularism and the role of religion in the public sphere.

This module builds on the first term module ‘Religion and Global Politics: Theories and Genealogies’ in order to question dominant approaches to religion and politics. Taking a thematic approach, we will examine a range of topics where the seemingly self-evident division between religion and politics is subjected to critical, applied analysis that engages specifically with contexts, perspectives, and practices in the global south. Themes will include religion, sectarianism and democratisation processes, the relationship between religious discourses and political violence or conflict resolution, the legislative difficulties presented by contradictions in liberalist political principles that underpin the political systems of the global North and its models of multiculturalism, variant conceptions of state-religion relationships, the role of religion in identity politics, state responses to religious identity claims and priorities, free speech and blasphemy, and religious discrimination in the framework of international human rights discourses, amongst others

The so-called ‘resurgence’ of religion in the public sphere and the domain of the political more generally in recent decades is now a significant area of interdisciplinary scholarship, eliciting a complex array of responses, ranging from vehement opposition to the very idea that religious concepts and commitments have a right to expression in public, political debates to a reassessment of the provenance and implications of divisions between the secular and the religious and their relationship to the nation state and the post-colony. The current geopolitical landscape wherein ‘religion’ has apparently become a force to be reckoned with has demanded a reassessment of once predominant understandings of processes of secularisation, as well as the meanings of, and tensions inherent within secular assumptions and secularist positions. The notion that there is no singular secularism, but rather a plurality of secularisms, and of religion as an invention of European modernity and colonialist exigencies are two of many emerging efforts to reconceptualise the meanings of religion, politics, and the secular and the entangled relationship between them.
This course will offer a comprehensive overview of these debates focusing particularly on theorisations of the nature of secularism and the role of religion in the public sphere as well as the genealogies of these debates in order to attend to the central issue of how the relationship between religion and politics is constituted, understood, and instantiated in a global context.