HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: Cultural Studies-Individual Graduate Prog.

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr Sonja Narunsky-Laden

Coordinator Email: sonja.narunskyladen@gmail.com

Coordinator Office Hours: Tuesdays 14:00-16:00

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Sonja Narunsky-Laden

Course/Module description:
This course examines Pierre Bourdieu’s (1993) notion of the field of cultural reproduction as it pertains to various “cultural spheres” in Israel and elsewhere, and analyses some of the power struggles that constitute them. We will consider a number of prominent “cultural spheres” featuring globally and within Israel, such as museums, performing arts (dance, theatre) festivals, music and film festivals, art fairs, biennales, book fairs, fashion weeks, and more, and discuss how the extent to which these are interlinked and/or autonomous. We will also refer to some of the ways in which these cultural spheres are distinct from a range of other public spheres, such as public parks and gardens, city squares, and municipal libraries. We will further discuss some of the ways in which ‘taste’, lifestyle patterns, and class origins and affiliations are formulated and legitimized within and outside the “cultural spheres” in question.
A crucial point to be raised, discussed and critiqued in this course relates to the way within the field of cultural reproduction issues of economic capital are ostensibly distinguished from, if not inverse to, issues of cultural capital. In other words, fields of cultural production where economic capital is produced are always oriented toward, even as they disguise themselves as antithetical to, symbolic capital; at the same time, fields where intellectual and/or artistic capital are produced always strive to conceal their underlying market motivations.
Examining more closely the cultural spheres in question, we will apply a critical approach to Bourdieu’s grasp of the workings of field of cultural reproduction, and consider its current relevance in cultural spheres today. In this context we will re-examine received notions of ‘high culture’ and ‘popular culture’, and engage with the notion of the ‘cultural omnivore’ who ostensibly maintains a penchant for diverse and/or eclectic cultural artefacts and practices. Moreover, we will consider the recent ‘social turn’ manifest in various artistic practices throughout several cultural spheres. This turn, also referred to a ‘relational aesthetics’, raises intriguing questions regarding ethics vs aesthetics, and urges us to consider what motivates both producers and consumers to engage creative and/or artistic imperatives to social ends.

Course/Module aims:
Course aims:
To identify and critically discuss basic concepts relating to the field of cultural reproduction.
To explain and exemplify how power struggles are established, maintained and altered in the field of cultural reproduction.
To determine how taste and lifestyle patterns are constituted in groups and among individuals.
To uncover some of the circumstances in which these are subject to change and modification.
To identify and analyse the notion of ‘cultural capital’.
To determine a range of specific features attributed to specific cultural spheres.
To identify and critically discuss the various functions of creators, producers, critics and other gatekeepers in particular cultural spheres.
To identify and critically examine the socio-cultural roles of the cultural spheres in question and the intermediaries that represent them.
To identify and critically discuss changing patterns of cultural consumption within the cultural spheres in question.
To gain an understanding, however partial, of various cultural spheres in Israel and how they are changing in light of global and domestic artistic concerns.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
By the end of this course students will know how various cultural spheres, in a range of cultural fields, both in Israel and elsewhere, are constituted, maintained, and modified over time.
Moreover, students will be in a position to examine and critically analyse the various socio-cultural roles played by a range of operative cultural intermediaries within the cultural spheres in question, and their changing configurations.
Students will be able to identify and critically describe the changing patterns of cultural consumption within and outside the cultural spheres in question.
Students will be able to discuss and identify some of the complexities relating to the notions of cultural capital, symbolic capital, and economic capital as they pertain to various aspects of the cultural spheres in question. They will also be able to discuss the interlinking of cultural ‘value’ and economic value, and how these are rendered ‘autonomous’.
Students will be able to conduct a research project on one or more of the cultural spheres examined during the course.
Course participants will be in position to reap maximum benefits for the internship (practicum) programme sponsored by the Program for Cultural Studies.

Attendance requirements(%):
95% attendance in class

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Frontal lectures combined with seminar discussions of topics and texts to be personally assigned to students.

Course/Module Content:
1. A brief discussion of cultural sociology.
2. Cultural practices as an arena of power struggles among advocates of 'high culture' as artistically consecrated and 'popular culture' as shallow.
3. the field of cultural reproduction: the field of restricted cultural reproduction vis-a-vis the field of mass cultural reproduction.
4. Comparing global and domestic (Israeli) cultural spheres.
5. Art and Business - Art as Business: complexities and correspondences.
6. Cultural Intermediaries and gatekeepers.
7. Cultural consumption: shaping 'taste' and group affiliation.
8. Cultural consumption: Class, ethnic and religious affiliation in Israeli culture.

Required Reading:
1."על כמה מתכונות השדה". בתוך בורדייה, פייר 2005. שאלות בסוציולוגיה. עורכת ז'יזל ספירו. תל-אביב: רסלינג, עמ' 113–119.
2."המטמורפוזה של הטעם". בתוך בורדייה, פייר 2005. שאלות בסוציולוגיה. עורכת ז'יזל ספירו. תל-אביב: רסלינג, עמ' 155–164.
3. "אופנה עילית ותרבות עילית". בתוך בורדייה, פייר 2005. שאלות בסוציולוגיה. עורכת ז'יזל ספירו. תל-אביב: רסלינג, עמ' 183–191.
4."אבל מי יצר את היוצרים?". בתוך בורדייה, פייר 2005. שאלות בסוציולוגיה. עורכת ז'יזל ספירו. תל-אביב: רסלינג, עמ' 193–205.
5.Bourdieu, Pierre. 1985 “The Market of Symbolic Goods”,Poetics 14: 13-44
6.DiMaggio, Paul. 1992 “Cultural Boundaries and Structural Change: The Extension of the High Culture Model to Theatre, Opera and the Dance, 1900- 1940. In Michele Lamont and Marcel Fournier (eds.). Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality. Chicago: Chicago University Press, pp. 143-150.
7.Wolff, Janet. 1999. “Cultural Studies and the Sociology of Culture”. Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Studies.
8. Jones, Paul. 2007. “Beyond the Semantic ‘Big Bang’: Cultural Sociology and An Aesthetic Public Sphere”. Cultural Sociology, Vol 1(1): 73-95.
9. Rydell, Robert. 2006 “World Fairs and Museums”. In A Companion to Museum Studies, edited by Sharon Macdonald. Blackwell.
10. Thompson, Don. 2011. “Art Fairs: The Market as Medium”, in Negotiating Values in the Creative Industries: Fairs, Festivals and Competitve Events, edited by Brian Moeran and Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen. Cambridge University Press.
11.Tang, Jeannine. 2011. “Biennalization and its Discontents”, in Negotiating Values in the Creative Industries: Fairs, Festivals and Competitve Events, edited by Brian Moeran and Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen. Cambridge University Press.
12.Moeran, Brian. 2011. “The Book Fair as a Tournament of Value”, in Negotiating Values in the Creative Industries: Fairs, Festivals and Competitve Events, edited by Brian Moeran and Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen. Cambridge University Press.
13.Entwistle Joanne and Agnes Rocamora. 2011. “Between Art and Commerce: London Fashion Week as Trade Fair and Fashion Spectacle,” in Negotiating Values in the Creative Industries: Fairs, Festivals and Competitve Events, edited by Brian Moeran and Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen. Cambridge University Press.
14. Sassatelli, Monica. 2011. “Urban Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere: Cosmopolitanism between Ethics and Aesthetics”, in Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere, edited by Liana Giorgi, Monica Sassatelli and Gerard Delanty. London and New York: Routledge.
15. English, James. 2011. “Festivals and the Geography of Culture: African Cinema in the ‘World Space’ of its Public, in Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere, edited by Liana Giorgi, Monica Sassatelli and Gerard Delanty. London and New York: Routledge.
16. McGuigan, Jim. 2011. “The Cultural Public Sphere – a Critical Measure of Public Culture?”, in Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere, edited by Liana Giorgi, Monica Sassatelli and Gerard Delanty. London and New York: Routledge.
17. Regev, Motti. 2011. “International Festivals in a Small Country: Rites of Recognition and Cosmopolitanism”, in Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere, edited by Liana Giorgi, Monica Sassatelli and Gerard Delanty. London and New York: Routledge.
18. Vergo, Peter. 1989. “The Reticent Object,” in The New Museology, edited by Peter Vergo. London: Reaktion Books.
19. Mason, Reannon. 2006. “Cultural Theory and Museum Studies,” in A Companion to Museum Studies, edited by Sharon Macdonald. Blackwell.
20. Hanquinet, Laurie and Mike Savage, 2012. “’Educative Leisure and the Art Museum”. Museum and Society 10(1)42-59.
21. Barker, Emma, ed. 1999 “Introduction”, Contemporary Cultures of Display. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
22. Petersen, Richard and Roger Kern. 1996. “Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore”. American Sociological Review 61(5):900-907.
23. Peterson, Richard 1992. “Understanding Audience Segmentation: From Elite and Mass to Omivore and Univore.” Poetics 21: 243-258.
24. Peterson, Richard. 1997. “The Rise and Fall of Highbrow Snoberry as a Status Marker”. Poetics 25: 75-92.
25. Warde, Alan, David Wright and Modesto Gayo-Cal. 2008. “The Omnivorous Orientation in the UK,” Poetics 36: 148-165.

Additional Reading Material:

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 70 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 30 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: