...Extended Essays in Social and Cultural Anthropology These subject guidelines should be read in conjunction with the “Introduction”, “Outline” and “Details—all essays” sections of this guide. Overview An extended essay in social and cultural anthropology provides students with an opportunity to develop an awareness of what constitutes a distinctively anthropological approach to the organization of human life in society and culture. Extended essays should be based on published ethnographic research. Students are expected to demonstrate, in the presentation of the research, their knowledge and understanding of the methods and aims of social and cultural anthropology. Choice of topic Social and cultural anthropology is not a “residual” category for essays that do not fit into any other extended essay subject. Students must choose topics that lend themselves to anthropological investigation, and must carefully consider their choice of topic in terms of the assessment criteria. An extended essay in social and cultural anthropology should analyse a topic from a theoretical or comparative perspective, based on the student’s own original analysis and on a solid understanding of the theoretical issues concerned. Students who intend to tackle comparative projects must be aware that research strategies involving two or more societies may call for greater narrowing of the research focus than a study in a single society. For example, a comparative analysis of Mexican and...
Words: 2008 - Pages: 9
...This essay intends to identify and explain the basis of the critical political economy approach to media analysis. This task will be achieved by first delivering a brief historical overview of this scholarly discipline. Additionally, and by way of a thorough inquiry of the pertinent literature, this paper will highlight the critical boundaries of this Marxist social theory. Moreover, this essay will contend that in an attempt to overcome these perceived limitations, contemporary proponents of the critical political economy of the media have in fact adopted a conciliatory position with the cultural studies approach. Indeed, this paper will deliver an understanding of the emergence of critical theory in social analysis. Consequently, through...
Words: 1082 - Pages: 5
...Case study Topic: Disney’s FROZEN as a global pop culture phenomenon FROZEN has been a global sensation with great reception by audiences around the world with its original song “Let It Go”. Let It Go was translated into many languages which captivated people around the globe of all ages . This move by Disney can be seen as a form of “media globalization” via the means of YouTube and theatrical releases on Television in different countries with different cultures and languages. The reception of the film can be seen as a “cultural process” or Cultural globalization which is the intensification and expansion of cultural flows across the globe . Academic Sources 1) Mollet, T. 2013. “With a smile and a song …”: Walt Disney and the birth of the American fairy tale.” Marvels & Tales 27 (1): 109-24. In this journal article, Mollet reviews on how Walt Disney’s production is now being seen as crucial to the construction of the modern American society through his contribution to the formation of a new United States nationalism . The author approaches the topic using cultural studies and textual analysis ofn Disney fairy tales to exemplify how they reflect the dominant (?) culture of America. Her research focuses on analysing Disney films such as “Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs”, “Three Little Pigs”, “Wizard of Oz” and how these films and their characters portray the unstable society and culture of America during the great depression and other different time periodslines. The...
Words: 3008 - Pages: 13
...This major work began for me on the reading of Junichirō Tanizaki’s ‘Some Prefer Nettles’. The tale itself, highly symbolic and tinged with an unmistakable pathos, ultimately led me to select as a focus for my major work the Taisho period of Japan, a period of social, political and literary fermentation. The Taisho period was a time of literary reflection on the changes the Meiji period had brought about, it was a period where a great many authors turned their minds towards locating an authentic cultural identity distinct from Western influence. Decidedly thus influenced by this topic, my critical response was to have the purpose of illustrating the tensions that exist between modernity and traditional culture, additionally dealing with the...
Words: 1555 - Pages: 7
...ASSESSMENT 1 SUMMARY The discourse of Entrepreneurship within Middle East Countries is a primary field of interest that has received the attention of many authors and academic experts during recent times. The existing Body of Law on a comprehensive basis has adequately analyzed the way in which the scientific and economical advancements, have taken place in the Middle East area. In this point of view, late proofs have broadly confirm how despite the fact that Saudi Arabia is now considered as a growing economy which is trying to diversify its exports, mainly based on oil and natural gas, by framing and revising its legal and regulatory environment in order to foster entrepreneurship activities and the private sector interest. It leads to growing concern about the role of women in the economic environment, with legal and ethical consideration of the women’s role in the existing socio-cultural make-up of the country. The way in which countries like Saudi Arabia, have developed a domestic organized economy that is based on entrepreneurship is a hypothesis that has been widely tested and cited within the existing body of Literature. Although many academic experts believe that Middle East countries still retain a promising potential for growth (Shachmurove, 2004), major obstacles in terms of detrimental factors such as corruption, unclear regulations and reliance on oil have also recognized. Women are therefore believed to play a primary role in the entrepreneurial...
Words: 2411 - Pages: 10
...success for organisations. AIMS The aims of the module are to: • to appreciate the importance of marketing as a management discipline in ensuring the long-term success of organisations across the ‘not-for-profit’, public sector and private sector business arenas and across the globe • to develop an understanding of marketing management in the broadest sense, of how marketing management approaches may have to be modified when seeking access to international markets and to be able to adopt a robust and objective approach to management decision making in both a domestic and in a global context • to appreciate the importance of culture in the formulation of and success of global marketing activities and to examine marketing ethics in a global context LEARNING OUTCOMES On successful completion of the module you will be able to: • appreciate the central importance of the marketing concept and of market drivers as interpreted through market research and analysis and...
Words: 2175 - Pages: 9
...CMM 801: Journalism and Communication Theory Academic Essay Writing An essay is best approached as an intellectual argument that develops from the ideas, issues, theories, concepts, methodologies, etc., you have been taught within the module for which it is the final assessment. It is most important therefore – even as you begin and then progress through the module – that you are clear about the fundamental perspectives, values and assumptions underpinning the course’s main themes and topics as they are being presented to you in lectures and seminars. Remember no theory or perspective has the whole picture. All accounts of the world are partial and biased from a particular understanding of how we are human and what society is. Such-and-such a view is only the case under certain conditions. A prime purpose for an essay is to critique particular ideas, pointing out how explanation A might be more useful and valid than B in these circumstances. In the conclusion of your essay, on the other hand, you might want to point out that in other contexts (social, cultural, eras, etc.) there may be other factors that need to be considered. Do these limit or question the weight of claims you have made in the development of your current argument? Key questions before you embark on writing your essay • Have you identified clearly the key issue the essay question wants scrutinised? • Have you checked the command word in the question – e.g. explain means give details about why...
Words: 2124 - Pages: 9
...Dec 2014 03:14 GMT) The Pedagogical Possibilities of Covering Gilman’s Wallpaper Karla J. Murphy In his introduction to The Pedagogical Wallpaper, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock notes how the pedagogical diversity of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” prompted him to collect essays for this book. He goes on to explain that “given the ubiquity of the text within various academic settings, I was also struck by the absence of attention to the text within pedagogical contexts. Despite the large (and steadily growing) body of criticism to the story, very little of it explicitly addresses its importance as a tool to facilitate learning or various ways in which to make use of the text in the classroom” (3). As a collection, Weinstock’s The Pedagogical Wallpaper contains informed, detailed, and diverse analysis that attempts to shore up the absence of “pedagogical possibilities” concerning Gilman’s transgressive short story (9). Among the contributors are a MOO space specialist, a Gilman scholar, a queer theorist, an existentialist, a formalist, and several reader/student-response theorists. Because each essayist presents a distinct critical perspective on Gilman’s text, each essay is likewise concerned with “how the narrative teaches and how to teach the narrative” (5). Thus, it seems to me that Weinstock’s The Pedagogical Wallpaper resonates with Pedagogy’s conviction that teaching is central to our work as scholars and educators, no matter what our particular perspective...
Words: 2869 - Pages: 12
...Assignment Baruch Spinoza once said, “The highest activity a human can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free”. Spinoza quoting that understanding leads to freedom – emancipation – can be interpreted as a statement from the perspective of a critical theorist (Green 2004) and if left unchallenged this statement would prove absolute. However, using a modernist perspective it can be argued that understanding would lead to quantification (Hatch, 2006) that could in turn, lead to greater efficiency. Solely from referencing the two theories above and the 2 ways of looking at a single statement we can ascertain that a combination of perspectives gives us a greater understanding than a single perspective. This essay explores how using a multi perspective approach would provide the individual with a more comprehensive and well ronded understanding to organisations, an increased capacity to understand how to better embrace structure and its implications and the holistic simplification and explaination of cultural effects. It also brings to light the conflicting nature of these theories and its inherant biasness. The first advantage of using a multi-perspective approach to understanding an organisation would be that it provides us with a more comprehensive and well-rounded understanding to organisations. This greater understanding begins with the internalisation of the different perspective’s ontology and epistemology, which are the assumptions...
Words: 2164 - Pages: 9
...University LCS270 Introduction to Cultural Studies, Fall 2012 T,Th 2:00-3:15 Professor Elizabeth Walden Office: Suite C, #226, x6332 ewalden@bryant.edu Office Hours: T, Th 12:00-2:00, 3:30-4:00, Course Description “Culture” is one of the most complicated words in the English language. It refers to world cultures, the whole way of life of a people, as well as great works of art and literature, and even the ordinary artifacts and practices of modern life like skateboarding and instant-messaging. Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary field that inquires into the meaning and significance of “culture” in its various contemporary forms and considers what is at stake, socially, politically and culturally in its various meanings. It asks, what is culture and how has it changed over time? What is the relation of culture to politics, the economy and structures of power? What is the relevance of culture to our everyday lives? What is popular culture and is it good for us? It addresses these questions not to give definitive answers but to engage the students in critical inquiry into the culture(s) in which they are embedded. As should be evident, LCS 270 is not an introduction to anthropology or global cultures. Rather, it is an introduction to methods of reading, interpreting and creating cultural texts in relation to broad political, ideological and historical contexts. The course understands "text" in the broadest of terms: any form of cultural production that is structured...
Words: 1803 - Pages: 8
...Decoding Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model Stuart Hall is a prominent sociologist and cultural theorist and author of the significantly influential essay Encoding/Decoding; published in 1973 during the time of his position as director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University (Chandler 2001). Encoding/Decoding is a theoretical framework devised to critically examine how society or the hegemonic institutions in society, disseminate messages implanted or ‘encoded’ (Hall 2001, p.167) with meaning ‘through the operation of codes within the syntagmatic chain of a discourse’ (Hall 2001, p.166). Hall’s model examines the processes in which television texts are constructed with dominant codes or ‘preferred readings’ (Hall 2011, p.172), whilst signifying theoretical strategies from which audiences can deconstruct and consume such readings existing within texts in correspondence to cultural and social conditions. Hall’s model laid the foundations for much ethnographic research; it is upon this premise and its comprehensive influence, that in this essay the advantages and limitations of his model will be evaluated with focus on how effectively it functions within the indicated parameters of specific texts and discourses. Hall’s model which is fundamentally a mode of communication and audience reception theory, stems from early models of which proposed to analyse how audiences interpreted texts through the visual and aural discourse of television...
Words: 1921 - Pages: 8
...Identify and explore a contemporary debate about community development. It is evident that existing literature highlight the complex nature of the concept of ‘community development work’. It is also true to say that there are constant changes in the political setting, and the disparity between theory and practice for community development work. To begin, this essay will attempt to define the key concepts of ‘community’ and ‘community development’ in order to understand the process. It will then explore the role of community development programs in aiding local communities to exercise control over the issues that affect their lives, in this case, the refugee women community in UK. Finally, it will also discuss about the role of critical practice in tackling the issues of social justice, such as social exclusion, poverty and inequalities. Community development is a very complex field and before attempting to define it, it is imperative to explain the meaning of ‘community’, which is in itself a contested term (Shaw, 2007). Different perspectives have been presented to define the term, for example Smith (2001) argues that ‘…some [definitions] focused on geographical area; some on a group of people living in a particular place and others which looked to community as an area of common life’. Again, according to Stacey, ninety four definitions of ‘community’ were given (Stacey, 1969 cited in Craig et al., 2008, p.14). Consequently, it becomes problematic to give a precise meaning...
Words: 1504 - Pages: 7
...In this essay I will compare and contrast the approaches of the Frankfurt School and the Birmingham School cultural studies approach to the “commodification of culture, as articulated by the Birmingham School versus the political economic one proposed by the Frankfurt School” (Gunster, 2007). According to the Birmingham School, culture and politics are separated into different spheres. Bound within the political arena are the culture influences and leadership support structures within society. As well as these areas, the economic power of this undertaking is carried out through political activity and not through the cultural sphere. It is through political activity that economic control develops into a vast social and cultural leadership....
Words: 859 - Pages: 4
...Course Study Guide 2011–12 International Business Management BUSI 1493 [pic] Contents 1. Welcome 3 2. Introduction to the Course 4 2.1 Aims 4 2.2 Learning Outcomes 4 2.2.1 Knowledge and understanding of: 4 2.2.2 Intellectual Skills: 4 2.2.3 Subject practical skills: 5 2.2.4 Transferable skills: 5 2.3 Learning and teaching activities 5 3. Contact Details 5 4. Course Content 6 4.1 Session Reading 20 5. Assessment Details 21 5.1 Summary of assessment 21 5.2 Detailed description of assessment 21 6. Other Details 23 1. Welcome Welcome to the exciting world of International Business Management! In this era of globalization, there are very few companies that can say that they are not part of a global network. Every firm has to think of itself as a global company, if for no other reason than because it has to meet competition from global companies. This changes the entire strategy of the firm. In the future, we expect that all of you will be involved in managerial decision making that will take you beyond the realms of your geographical territory. This course on International Business Management will have the focus on helping you make better international decisions. Aside from the opportunities offered by globalisation, there are also many risks in entering into the global market. This course will attempt to address, in a structured format, the ways and possibilities of addressing...
Words: 2809 - Pages: 12
...Charles Martin S3134484 1 The advantages of differing views on organisational culture theory: the benefits of a multiparadigm approach The purpose of this essay is to outline the advantages and disadvantages of robust debate surrounding the field of organisational culture. To achieve this, this essay presents the benefits of robust debate which has led to multiple paradigms surrounding the field of organisational culture within organisational theory. It will then be demonstrated how the effect of multiple paradigms produces various, ever improving research approaches, and different research methods which contribute insights that refute, support or extend current knowledge (Lewis & Kelemen 2002). When examined, these techniques provide a context for change within management practice using a multiparadigm approach. It has been observed by many researchers that a single paradigm is inevitably limiting when attempting to uncover certain facets within organisations and can obscure others (Schultz and Hatch 1996). The apparent discourse within organisational culture theory has exemplified organisational theory to the extent that Mingers and Brocklesby (1997) praised organisational studies for exemplifying and encouraging multiparadigm interests within other fields of research (e.g. physics, biology). The benefits of a multiparadigm approach is argued to offer a midpoint between the extremes of academic theory; this has been achieved in organisational culture by constructing...
Words: 1945 - Pages: 8
