HONORS SPECIALIZATION IN GLOBAL CULTURE
MAJOR IN GLOBAL CULTURE STUDIES
SPECIALIZATION IN GLOBAL CULTURE
Degree modules in Global Culture Studies approach the broad range of subjects and problems of interest to Global Studies in terms of the ideas that shape contemporary global issues. They promote examination of the perspectives, ideologies, concepts, and cultural understandings that underlie and give form to the interrelations and power struggles between people and communities. In this respect, Global Culture Studies students examine how the networks through which people interact and confront one another are caught within and typically interpreted through specific and often conflicting ways of knowing and making sense of the world and one's place in it. Moreover, students investigate the social and political actions that make these forms of global culture possible.
Global Culture Studies students pursue mostly theoretical and critical analyses into how the people of the world divide themselves in terms of: social and cultural identities; geographical spaces and places; political values and ideals; legal norms and definitions; and forms of human subjectivity and rights. Along the way, students focus their studies on such specific problems as: the relationship between thought and action; the conflict in human rights claims between citizens and refugees; the ordering of global politics in terms of gender; the force of law in shaping societies globally; postcolonial difference and resistance; the racialisation of identities; global ethics and responsibilities; and the formations and transgressions of borders, boundaries, territories, and frontiers.
The fundamental objective of degree modules in Global Culture Studies is to assist students in developing sufficient understanding and skills for them to successfully subject to critical analyses the global social, political, cultural and legal networks in which they themselves already live. To this end, the core courses leading to degrees in Global Culture Studies emphasise serious and direct engagement with contemporary critical theory and philosophy in relation to the range of topics generally available in Global Studies. The final goal of Global Culture Studies is to help students recognise their own social responsibilities as scholars, so that they may appreciate the force of their own cultures of understanding in global affairs and so that they may generate critical stances to their own thinking, learning, and actions in the world.
An honours specialization in Global Culture Studies prepares students particularly well for graduate study in interdisciplinary Master's (MA) programs concerning social, political, and cultural theory. Depending on the specific range of courses they select in their undergraduate studies, students with degrees in Global Culture Studies may also prepared themselves well for MA programs in International Studies, Social Justice, Gender, Politics, Globalisation Studies, Human Rights, Nationalism and Ethnicities, Migration Studies, and Cultural Studies, as well as the study of Law.
