Diploma de Extensión en British Cultural Studies

The British Cultural Studies extension course provides an overview of British culture and history.  Students engage critically with British cultural texts, and in the process of exploring and articulating British themes—participating in the analysis of films, plays, and other texts, and engaging in classroom discussions—they also improve their research and communication skills.  The course also explores the evolution of the English language, from its Indo-European roots to its modern variations.  The final project consists of the writing and development of a play, to be read in collaboration with fellow students as part of the end-of-semester dramatized reading session.  The program is taught in English.   
 
We provide an opportunity for Chilean students to explore Britain, share their findings, and effectively communicate these in English.  It also provides creative writing techniques and cultural text analysis as a way to facilitate the incorporation of cultural content into the professional lives of students in an effective way.   

The BCS extension course includes the following modules:  

Early British History through Literature and Film

Through the analysis of different cultural representations (including films and literary texts), this module introduces students to the early history of Britain, and examines historical events and experiences from a cultural perspective—focusing on the dominant paradigms that have shaped each cultural epoch from Prehistoric Britain to the English Civil War. 

British Cultural Studies

This module introduces students to the academic discipline of Cultural Studies. Students become familiar, and are able to recognize, the main theoretical trends influencing Cultural Studies over the history of the discipline and are shown how these ideas can be applied to the analysis of cultural texts, including films.  The module also introduces students to the concepts and ideas related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and identity. Students explore how geographical space has been used to construct nationhood—and, at the same time, how marginalized groups have contested, and rearticulated the meaning of those spaces.  The goal of this module is to give students a basic set of conceptual tools to be able to think about the cultural matrix of Britain critically, and as a site where meanings are produced, identities and subjectivities are formed and power consolidated and/or contested. 

British Literature

This module is designed to introduce students to a variety of British authors who have articulated (or challenged) the dominant cultural paradigms throughout British history. Essentially, this module will focus on visions—and revisions—that express, from distinctive points of view, and from different walks of life, what it has meant to be British over time. 

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire

This module tells the story of how a small island nation, beginning in the 17th century, was able to build one of the most extensive and effective empires in human history, only to watch it disappear practically overnight in the aftermath of World War II. It explores the links between the British Empire and mercantilism, colonialism (and modernity), science and industrialization, as well as the main economic and political consequences of empire for the peoples of the Commonwealth of Nations. It also seeks to highlight the British Empire’s historical role in the general propagation of slavery, plunder, the English language, English customs, and the formation of the contemporary globalized world.

The History of the English Language

This module explores the evolution of English from its Indo-European origins to the expansion of English throughout the world. The module is intended to highlight the link between language and culture, as well as language and history. Topics include the legacy of Latin and Celtic, the Scandinavian influence on Old English, the impact of the Norman Conquest, the reestablishment of English during the Early modern England period, the impact of Shakespeare and the English Renaissance, the rise of standard English, and the impact English has had on the world. 

Modern Britain

This module explores contemporary United Kingdom, and includes an economic and political overview of British society, as well as an exploration of British recent history.  It is a module that also explores British customs and traditions. Topics include: World War I, World War II, post-war austerity, the swinging 60’s vs. the underground scene, the punk subculture of the 1970’s, the British working class movement, Thatcher’s neoliberal revolution, the resurgence of British pride in the 1990’s, and multicultural/multiethnic Britain. 

Playwriting Workshop

This module introduces students to the basic theoretical and practical components of playwriting, and provides hands-on training so that students can develop the skills necessary to work on and complete the program’s final project: a thoroughly researched and historically based play script. Throughout the semester, students will be exposed to the world of script production, and will learn how to apply what they have learned in the other modules in order to produce and create characters, background context, setting descriptions, dialogue and stage directions. Students will also have the opportunity to participate actively in several readings of, not only their own scripts, but of the scripts of their fellow students—and will receive the necessary feedback from the instructor, as well as from peers, to develop and improve their final products. 

Final Project Language Workshop

This module consists of a series of workshop sessions that are designed to accompany students throughout the year during the development of their final creative writing project (the play).  Students receive linguistic support in the writing of their final project; they also receive guidance with respect to the incorporation of cultural and historical elements into their play scripts.   

Coordinación

Anthony Rauld y Paula Cuadra.

Contacto: britishculturalstudies.chile@gmail.com

Requisitos

• Inglés Avanzado (B2*)
• *establecido con entrevista personal

Formas de pago

Se puede cancelar con los siguientes medios de pago:

• Transferencia bancaria a nombre de Universidad de Chile, RUT 60.910.000-1 Banco Santander, cuenta corriente 3980074-8.
• Sistema Webpay