106-430 Studying Subcultures

Credit Points

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject studies texts and events relating to various subcultural formations, including gangs, music subcultures, drug cultures, ethnic or diasporic subcultures, queer cultures, body art cultures and techno-cultures. Students will understand how cultural arrangements and identifications can occur through the subcultural frame; they will also examine ways in which cultural forms can be contested or claimed by subcultures. Students will be encouraged to read subcultures both textually and sociologically - appreciating in particular ethnographic problems in relation to the documentation of subcultural activity. They will also analyse subcultural studies as an historically-framed discipline, beginning with late 19th century ethnographies and developing through the Chicago School and the Birmingham tradition.

Assessment

Written work of not more than 6000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• K Gelder and S Thornton eds, The Subcultures Reader. Routledge.