Course Objectives

The goal of this specialisation course is to supply students with tools which will enable them to understand culture in a historical perspective and to analyse cultural-historical problem approaches and themes. This cultural-historical specialisation course is therefore divided into two parts with a cultural-historical unit (cultural-historical theory and methods) and a thematic unit. On this basis, the students will gain experience in applying cultural-historical theory in cultural-historical analysis. The specialisation course is a continuation of the syllabus in historical theory and methods from the introductory seminar in cultural studies, for which the course is adapted in terms of themes, theory and methods.

Course Description

A main subject-historical theme in the specialisation course will be to view and identify cultural history in a general historiographic context with stress on trends from the 1800s (historicism, the German Historical School) up to the modern cultural history of the 1990s. The course will emphasise the most prominent historical trends in cultural-historical studies, such as intellectual and micro history, new-historicism and “everyday history” (Alltagsgeschichte). Stress will be placed on how a cultural trend affects the theoretical and methodological foundation in cultural studies, and, in connection with this, the debate concerning which new knowledge emerged from these developments. The course will also examine what kinds of source material are practical to work with, from written and oral sources to various forms of images and artistic expressions. Possibilities of combining diachronic and synchronic analysis will also be addressed, for example by viewing suitable cultural complexes such as migration and ethnicity from a historical perspective. We will also study cultural history in relation to fundamental intellectual movements such as the Enlightenment and Romanticism.

The more theoretical part of the course will be supplemented with a unit concerned with individual themes that are analysed from a cultural-historical viewpoint. A series of topics are suitable for cultural-historical analysis, such as cultural heritage and traditions, nation-building and nationalism, cultural and national identity, migration and cultural change, folk-traditions and carnival, intellectual trends and emotionalism, socialisation and consciousness, Norway, Scandinavia and Europe, the West and ‘the others’ in the past and present, globalisation and multiculturalism from a historical perspective.

Learning Methods

The course includes lectures and seminars, 3-4 hours per week over one semester.

Assessment Methods

Students will submit a term paper on the basis of the curriculum, which will count 20% of the final grade (mid-term assessment). Final assessment involves a trial lecture of 40-45 minutes duration, or an oral examination, which will count for 80% of the final grade.
Alternatively, the course will be concluded with a written home assignment with a 10-day submission deadline which will comprise a maximum of 15 pages (1.5 line spacing) + references and any attachments.

Minor adjustments may occur during the academic year, subject to the decision of the Dean