Overview
Cultural Studies examines contemporary questions regarding power, justice, identity and diversity, with an understanding of their historical contexts. Students receive an education that helps them to understand how their daily experiences and the world around them are interrelated, including social, political, and ecological relations. The program includes core Cultural Studies courses and selected courses from other disciplines including Anthropology, Indigenous Studies, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, Sociology, and Visual Arts. It is organized in two thematic streams: Media and Popular Cultures courses focus on media analysis, the significance of global popular cultures, and media production skills; Identities and Power courses use critical and cultural theory to study cultural production, cultural history, representation, and social practices. Students develop knowledge and skills that are crucial for a wide variety of professions and careers, including skills in critical analysis, research methodologies, project development, and communication. Cultural Studies graduates have continued on into careers including communications, heritage management, journalism, law, library science, teaching, and urban planning.
1. Cultural Studies Concepts and Approaches
Explain, apply, and critically analyze concepts, approaches, and theories of culture and communication in a variety of contexts and attentive to audience, including personal interactions, academic, professional and community settings.
2. Power and Difference
Identify, understand, and critically analyze the socio-historical construction of social differences, including inequality, discrimination, and social change, as well as the social, cultural, and political contributions to knowledge by diverse communities.
3. Decolonization
Recognizing that we live and learn in syilx Okanagan land, identify, understand, and critically analyze the historical and ongoing role of colonial processes here and globally in terms of how they inform cultural relations and cultural production, as well as practices of decolonizing knowledge and material relationships, including the connections and distinctions between decolonization and Indigenization.
4. Subjectivity, Positionality, and Self-Reflection
Demonstrate critical self-reflection, attentive to one’s lived experience and social positions, as they relate to theories of relation, practices of interpretation and intercultural communication, as well as theories of knowledge production.
5. Analysis and Interpretation
Perform analysis of cultural and media texts, cultural practices, and academic research and data, demonstrating critical thinking through the use of cultural studies concepts, theories, and critical approaches.
6. Research Methodologies
Conduct original research following a structured process, demonstrating understanding of research ethics and citation as historically and culturally situated practices, and demonstrate skills in specific cultural studies methodologies, including but not limited to archival research, creative methodologies, digital research, discourse analysis, ethnography, land/place-based research, oral history, and textual analysis.
7. Communication
Demonstrate proficiency in conventions and practices in oral, written, and visual communication for diverse audiences and contexts, including attention to the power dynamics embedded in social processes of communication.
Admission Requirements
Prospective Cultural Studies students can declare a Cultural Studies major, combined major or minor at any time.
Major in Cultural Studies
First and Second Years
B.A. requirements, including the following:
- CULT_O 100, 101;
- 3 credits of CULT_O courses numbered from 200 to 229;
- 3 credits of CULT_O courses numbered from 230 to 299;
- 6 credits of 200-level courses from:
ANTH_O 205, 218, 252; ARTH_O, CORH_O, CRWR_O 205, 210, 219, 250, 260; DIHU_O, GEOG_O 255; GWST_O, INDG_O 201, 202, 203, SOCI_O 212, 216, 217, 219, 226, 228, 231, 249; THTR_O 204, 211, 212, VISA_O 200, 201, 206, 244, 261, 266, 268, 269
Third and Fourth Years
30 credits from the 300- and 400-level courses below with at least 9 credits of CULT designated courses in each of the two lists (Media and Popular Cultures and Identities and Power), including at least 6 credits of CULT designated courses at the 400-level.
| Media and Popular Cultures Course List |
| CULT_O 300 Documentary and Docudrama (ENGL_O 378) |
| CULT_O 301 Media Studies and Popular Cultures: Areas and Themes |
| CULT_O 303 Narrative Film Production (FILM_O 303; THTR_O 303) |
| CULT_O 305 English-Canadian Screen Culture (ENGL_O 377) |
| CULT_O 308 Digital Humanities: Areas and Themes (DIHU_O 308) |
| CULT_O 312 Internet Culture |
| CULT_O 313 Topics in Transnational Asian Pop Culture |
| CULT_O 315 Television Studies (ENGL_O 376) |
| CULT_O 317 Digital Documentary Production (FILM_O 371) |
| CULT_O 320 Creative Activism: Art, Media, and Social Justice (ARTH_O 323) |
| CULT_O 325 Media and the Politics of Identity |
| CULT_O 362 Advance Practice in Photography (VISA_O 362) |
| CULT_O 382 Advanced Practice in Media Communications (VISA_O 382) |
| CULT_O 384 Spoken Word (THTR_O 384; CRWR_O 384) |
| CULT_O 400 Topics in Popular Culture (ENGL_O 493) |
| CULT_O 401 Topics in Media Studies |
| CULT_O 406 Digital Afterlives (DIHU_O 406) |
| CULT_O 405 Reading Gothic Film (ENGL_O 455) |
| CULT_O 409 Topics in Digital Humanities (DIHU_O 409, ENGL_O 409) |
| CULT_O 410 Asian Cinema |
| ARTH_O 301 Critical Viewing - Advanced Studies |
| ARTH_O 410 Gender, Art, and Space in the Islamic World |
| Identities and Power List |
| CULT_O 304 Place-based Methods for Interdisciplinary Research |
| CULT_O 309 Performance Art: Global Perspectives (ARTH_O 309, THTR_O 309) |
| CULT_O 340 Colonialism and Decolonization (ENGL_O 379) |
| CULT_O 346 Human Rights, Literature, and Culture (ENGL_O 384) |
| CULT_O 350 Indigenous Literature: Intellectual Traditions (ENGL_O 387) |
| CULT_O 351 Settler Studies, Literature, and Culture (ENGL_O 385) |
| CULT_O 360 Public Memory, Commemoration, and Identity |
| CULT_O 370 Writing the Self: Theory and Practice (GWST_O 340) |
| CULT_O 371 Modern Critical Theory and Interdisciplinary Methods (ENGL_O 309) |
| CULT_O 375 Auto/Biography Survey (ENGL_O 342) |
| CULT_O 390 Identities and Power: Areas and Themes |
| CULT_O 411 Performance Studies (THTR_O 411) |
| CULT_O 437 Postcolonial Studies (ENGL_O 437) |
| CULT_O 450 Studies in Indigenous Literature and Criticism (ENGL_O 473) |
| CULT_O 460 Posthumanism and Critical Animal Studies (ENGL_O 457) |
| CULT_O 470 Interdisciplinary Studies in Critical Theory (ENGL_O 412) |
| CULT_O 475 Topics in Auto/Biography (ENGL_O 456) |
| CULT_O 485 Masculinities, Media, and Performance |
| CULT_O 490 Topics in Identities and Power |
| CULT_O 491 Black Intellectual Traditions (ENGL_O 491) |
| ANTH_O 355 Ethnography of Development |
| ANTH_O 377 Sociolinguistics |
| ANTH_O 401 Contemporary Theory in Anthropology |
| GEOG_O 359 Culture, Space, and Politics |
| GEOG_O 480 Advanced Seminar in Critical Geography |
| GWST_O 333 Perspectives on Gendered Bodies |
| GWST_O 335 Gender and Women's Studies in Humanities |
| GWST_O 419 (3) Gender, Dress, and Fashion: Histories and Theories |
| HIST_O 352 Class and Culture in Latin America |
| INDG_O 301 Examining Indigenous Methodology: En'owkinwixw |
| INDG_O 303 Indigenous Studies Theory and Methodology |
| INDG_O 305 Indigenous Justice |
| INDG_O 306 Indigenous Land Claims |
| INDG_O 308 Indigenous Culture, Heritage, and Intellectual Property |
| INDG_O 310 Gender Nation State Resistance |
| INDG_O 420 Indigenous Perspectives on Food, Place, Identity, and Biodiversity |
| INDG_O 440 Residential Schools and Reconciliation |
| INDG_O 450 Women Feminisms Activisms |
| SOCI_O 301 Sociology of Development and Underdevelopment |
| SOCI_O 313 Advanced Studies in Sociology of Gender |
| SOCI_O 320 Cultural Studies in Sociology |
| SOCI_O 371 Deviance and Social Control |
| SOCI_O 415 Feminist Theory |
| SOCI_O 430 Labour in a Global Economy |
| SOCI_O 467 Social Movements |
| Other Cultural Studies Courses |
| CULT_O 495 Directed Studies |
| CULT_O 499 Community-Engaged Research in Cultural Studies |
Not all courses will be offered each year; the program will publish the list of offered courses on a year-to-year basis at Cultural Studies.
Some of this program's third and fourth year course options are from other established programs, which may have program-based prerequisites that will limit students' choices. Students are advised to make themselves aware of these prerequisites as they plan their degrees.
Combined Major with Cultural Studies
A combined major is created by satisfying the requirements for a combined major in Cultural Studies and another B.A. program that offers a combined major (currently Art History and Visual Culture, Creative Writing, English and French. A single course can only fulfill the combined major requirement for one program.
The Cultural Studies requirements for the combined major include the following:
First and Second Years
B.A. requirements, including the following:
- CULT_O 100, 101;
- 6 credits of 200-level CULT_O, with at least 3 credits from CULT_O 200 TO 229 and 3 credits from CULT_O 230 to 299.
Third and Fourth Years
- 21 credits of 300- and 400-level courses from the course lists provided for the major, with:
- At least 6 credits of CULT_O designated courses from each of the following: 1) Media and Popular Cultures, 2) Identities and Power; and
- including 3 credits of CULT_O designated courses at the 400-level.
Minor in Cultural Studies
To complete a Minor in Cultural Studies, students must complete the following:
- CULT_O 100, 101;
- 6 credits of 200-level CULT_O; and
- at least 18 credits of 300- or 400-level courses applicable to the Major in Cultural Studies, at least 3 credits of which must be CULT_O designated courses at the 400-level.