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Course Schedule

*Course readings, including multimedia content, are not yet finalized.

Week 1 May 2-6: Introduction I — Why is Culture important to Development Studies?

This introductory week will engage with “culture” as a contested, dynamic concept that is situated with relations of power and specific to particular time/space contexts.

  • Daniel Lerner, 2002. “The Grocer and the Chief: A Parable” in Susanne Schech and Jane Haggis (eds.)Development: A Cultural Studies Reader pp. 3-10
  • Amartya Sen. 2004. “How does culture matter?” in Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton (eds.) Culture and Public ActionDelhi: Permanent Black. pp. 37-58
  • Raymond Williams, 1977. “Culture” from his Marxism and Literature Oxford, Oxford University Press. pp. 11-20
  • FILM: “Trinkets & beads” Dir. Christopher Walker. 1996.

Suggested but not required:

Week 2 May 9-13: Introduction II—Historicizing "Culture" within Development Studies: Tradition, Barrier, Explanation

In this week’s readings we will examine the historical relationship of “culture” to notions of “development” in order to begin thinking about the implications for their complex interrelationship.

  • Samuel Huntington, 1993. “Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs,72 (3): 22-49.
  • Emma Crewe and Elizabeth Harrison, 2005. “Seeing Culture as a Barrier” in Marc Edelman and Angelique Haugerud (eds) The Anthropology of Development and Globalization: From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing pp. 232-4.
  • Roger Goodman, “Culture as Ideology: Explanations for the development of Japanese economic miracle” in Tim Allen and Tracey Skelton (eds.) Culture and Global Change pp. 127-136.
  • VIDEO: “ A conversation about the aftermath of the Cold War ” (Charlie Rose interviews Samuel Huntington)

Suggested but not required:

Week 3 May 16-20: Cultures of Development I—Colonialism, Discourse, and Power

In this week's readings we will interrogate the role of power dynamics, the concept of “Orientalism,” and the role of discourse in reproducing colonial relations in our conceptions of “culture” and “development.”

  • Edward Said, 2002. “Orientalism” in Susanne Schech and Jane Haggis (eds.) Development: A Cultural Studies Reader pp. 47-55
  • Stuart Hall 2002, “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power” in Susanne Schech and Jane Haggis (eds.) Development: A Cultural Studies Reader pp. 56-64.
  • Chandra Talpade Mohanty, 1984. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses” Boundary 2 (12): 333-358.

Suggested but not required:

Week 4 May 23-27: Cultures of Development II—Development Categories, Hegemony and Paradigm Shifts

One of the enduring debates within development studies has to do with questions of “poverty” – whether it is a social construction or an undeniable, objective, material reality. This week we take up this question alongside considerations of “hegemony” and notions of “paradigm shifts.”

  • Arturo Escobar, 2002. “Problematization of Poverty” in Susanne Schech and Jane Haggis (eds.) Development: A Cultural Studies Reader pp.79-92
  • Antonio Gramsci, 1971. “The Study of Philosophy” in his Prison Notebooks NY: International Publishers pp. 321-331
  • Ilan Kapoor, 2007. “The Culture of Development Policy” in his T he Postcolonial Politics of Development London: Routledge. pp. 19-37.
  • Nanda Shreshta, 2002. “Becoming a Development Category” in Jonathan Crush (ed.) Power of Development pp. 267-77

Suggested but not required:

Week 5 May 30-June 3: Cultures of Development III—The Shared History of Capital and Culture

Here we turn to questions of capitalism and the historical relationship to “culture” especially the phase known as “globalization.”

  • Arjun Appadurai 2002, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy” in Susanne Schech and Jane Haggis (eds.) Development: A Cultural Studies Reader pp. 157-167
  • David Guss, 2000. “‘Full Speed Ahead with Venezuela’: The Tobacco Industry, Nationalism, and the Business of Popular Culture” in his The Festive State: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism as Cultural Performancepp. 90-128

Suggested but not required:

Week 6 June 6-10: MIDTERM EXAM (NO READINGS)

Week 7 June 13-17 (Final Paper Proposal Due): Contemporary Paradigms I—Universal Human Rights and Capabilities

In this week we investigate a variety of notions of “human rights” with respect to concepts of “progress,” “freedom,” and “democracy” and questions of cultural autonomy and diversity. Alongside this we consider Martha Nussbaum’s conception of “capabilities” as a metric for “development.”

Suggested but not required:

Week 8 June 20-24 (Required Live Discussion with Instructor): Contemporary Paradigms—Neo-Liberal Cultures

Since the 1980s, the project of neo-liberalism has assumed a dominant role in considerations of “development.”

  • Amartya Sen, 2001. “Poverty as Capability Deprivation” in his Development as Freedom pp. 87-110.
  • Julia Elyachar, 2002. “Empowerment Money: The World Bank, Non-Governmental Organizations, and the Value of Culture in Egypt” Public Culture (14) 3: 493-513.

Suggested but not required:

Week 9 June 27- July 1: Globalizations I—Multiple Modernities

This week we more deeply address questions of “modernity” and “development” as we consider what it means to think about multiple modernities, through the lens of debates surrounding the incorporation of sharia law in Canada.

  • Razack, Sherene. “The Muslims are Coming: The ‘Sharia Debate’ in Canada.” Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 145-172.
  • FILM: Sharia in Canada. Dir. Dominique Cardona. 2006.

Suggested but not required:

Week 10 July 4-8: Globalizations II—(Popular) Culture and Development

During this week we will consider how can we think about popular culture in the age of globalizations with respect to “development.”

  • FILM: Slumdog Millionaire .Dir. Danny Boyle. 2008.
  • Mitu Sengupta 2010 “A Million Dollar Exit from the Anarachic Slum-world: Slumdog Millionaire’shollow claims of social justice” Third World Quarterly, 31:4, 599-616.
  • I. Condry. “Japanese Hip Hop and the Globalization of Popular Culture” in G. Gmelch and W. Zenner (eds) Urban Life, 4th edn, Waveland Press, pp. 357-87.

Suggested but not required:

Week 11 July 11-15: Globalizations III—The Environment and the Non-Human

Environmental crises and the threat of climate change compel us to think about considerations of “culture” in terms of the non-human environment.

  • Laduke, Winona. 1999. “Introduction” from All our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Pp. 1-10.
  • Morales, Evo. 2010. “Respect Mother Earth: Three statements by Evo Morales” in Angus, Ian, ed. The Global Fight for Climate Justice: Anticapitalist Responses to Global Warming and Environmental Destruction.
  • US State Department. “Executive Summary” from “Fifth Climate Action Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Suggested but not required:

Week 12 July 18-22: Globalizations IV—Culture, Development, and Social Movements

In this final week’s readings we will engage with social movements for social justice and ecological sustainability.

  • World Social Forum Statement of Principles
  • “PEOPLES AGREEMENT” World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth April 22nd, 2010. Cochabamba, Bolivia.

  • Blanco, Hugo. 2010. “To save humanity we must return to our roots” in Angus, Ian, ed. The Global Fight for Climate Justice: Anticapitalist Responses to Global Warming and Environme ntal Destruction.

Suggested but not required:

FINAL RESEARCH PAPER DUE: July 27, 2011 12pm (Noon) EST

More information:

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