Dr Myria Georgiou, STC. S119a

Available as an optional course for students on the following programmes: MSc Global Media and Communications (with Fudan or USC), MSc Culture and Society, MSc Media and Communications, MSc Media and Communications (Research), MSc Media, Communication and Development and MSc Gender, Media and Culture. Also available as an outside option where regulations permit and with the permission of the course convenor.

This course examines the relation between identity and the media in the context of diaspora and transnationalism. The course examines  meanings of identity at present times, especially as these are formed through experiences  of mediated and physical transnational mobility. As migration and symbolic mobility, especially through the media, inform each other it becomes almost impossible to understand identity outside the context of mediation.   The course is organised in three main thematic units. The first unit provides the conceptual entry point to the course. The second unit focuses on the modes of transnational communication: television, cinema and the internet. The third unit focuses on the spaces of transnational communication: the city, the nation and the transnational space. Each unit and lecture contributes to the understanding of identity in a world that is increasingly interconnected and networked.  

Lecture (one hour) x 10 LT; seminar (one hour) x 10 LT.

All students are expected to complete advance reading, prepare seminar presentations, and submit one essay of 1,500 words.

Appadurai, A. (2006) Fear of Small Numbers, Duke University Press; Bailey, Guedes O., M. Georgiou and R.Harindranath (eds.) (2007) Transnational Lives and the Media: Reimagining Diasporas, Palgrave; Beck, U. (2006) Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity; Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture, Routledge; Du Gay, P. et al. (eds.)  (2000) Identity: A Reader, Sage; Hall, S. and P. du Gay (eds.) (1996) Questions of Cultural Identity, Sage; Georgiou, M. (2006). Diaspora, Identity and the Media: Diasporic Transnationalism and Mediated Spatialities, Hampton Press; Gilroy, P. (2004) After Empire: Multiculture or Postcolonial Melancholia, Routledge; Harvey, D. (2006) 'Cosmopolitanism and the Banality of Geographical Evils' in The British Journal of Sociology 2006 (57) 1; Naficy, H. (ed.) (1998) Home, Exile, Homeland, Routledge; Ong, A. (1999) Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, Duke University Press; Werbner, P. (2008) Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism: Rooted, Feminist and Vernacular Perspectives, Berg; Vertovec, S (2009) Transnationalism, Routledge.

A written assignment of not more than 3, 000 words.