Culture & inequality

This is a free, collaborative, transnational podcast course.  Conceived during the (first) global lockdown of spring 2020, when students and professors around the world had to move to online teaching in a matter of weeks, it offers podcasts with free “teaching packages” for students and professors. For the fall semester of 2020, 14 episodes are planned. But due to popular demand, we are now planning to continue in 2021 (and possibly even after the pandemic ends).

With contributions by (in order of appearance):
Giselinde Kuipers (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Luuc Brans (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Dave O’Brien (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Laurie Hanquinet (Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
Phillipa Chong (McMaster University, Canada)
Jennifer Lena (Columbia University, US)
Dieter Vandebroeck (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
Simone Varriale (Lincoln University, UK)
Julian Schaap (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
Jo Haynes (University of Bristol, UK)
Simon Stewart (University of Portsmouth, UK)
Sebastien Chauvin (Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland)
Bruno Cousin (Sciences-Po Paris, France)
Jeroen van de Waal (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Joost Oude Groeniger (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
Predrag Cveticanin (University of Niš, Serbia)
Yang Gao (Furman University, US)
Jonathan Mijs (Harvard University, US)
Magne Flemmen (Oslo University, Norway)

And more coming up ….

Music and photography
Timothy Dowd (Emory University, US)

Editing
Iris Verhulsdonk, Luuc Brans

With financial support of
Center for Sociological Research, KU Leuven
European Center for the Study of Culture and Inequality, VUB

This is a teaching podcast series about Culture and Inequality. It consists of thematic teaching “packages” and a closing episode. Each package focuses on a central debate or theme in the study of culture and inequality, and includes a podcast, readings (which are discussed in the podcast) and assignments.

These packages are meant for flexible use in a range of teaching settings (regular, hybrid or fully online) for undergraduate or graduate studies in social sciences or humanities. The packages and podcasts can be used as a coherent course or separately, and can be used in the order suggested below, or in another order that fits an existing course. All podcasts will be shared on various online platforms, and will be freely available.

The teaching packages
Each package consist of

1. A podcast, typically consisting of a conversation/interview by the theme ‘curator’ and one or more sociologists who discuss their own and other’s work.
2. 2-4 central readings (±60-70 pages); sometimes additional further materials including documentaries, visual materials.
3. Discussion questions or group assignment for students. These questions/assignments can be done in smaller groups without supervision, or in seminar style meetings (online or offline). The assignments can be used as the basis for a portfolio for evaluation.

Possible teaching formats
The ‘packages’ can be used for various teaching formats, for instance:

1. Students work mostly in unsupervised groups (online/offline) and use the assignments to build a portfolio to discuss with the lecturer, for instance in biweekly meetings. The podcast completely replace lectures and seminars.
2. Students meet for online interactive classes with the lecturer to discuss the questions/ assignments. Because of the podcasts, these classes can be shorter than usual, e.g. 60 minutes, or more interactive. In this case, the podcast replaces lectures, but not professor-led discussion.
3. Students meet in real classes, but in smaller groups or with less frequency. Podcasts replace lost face-to-face teaching time due to corona measures.
4. Etc

Learning goals
Students who complete this podcast course course will

• Be aware of the state of the art in the study of culture and inequalities (in particular in cultural sociology), and be able to critically reflect on this;
• Be able to present a well-argued and well-founded assessment of studies in this field;
• Be able to distinguish the main theoretical and methodological approaches in the study of culture and inequality and to critically reflect on their strengths and weaknesses.
• Be able to apply scholarly insights regarding culture and inequality to (their own) everyday experience and contemporary social issues and developments;
• Be able to identify cultural processes, social inequalities, and their interconnections across various social domains (e.g. arts, migration, health), and thus to connect this field to other subfields of sociology and other social sciences;
• Be aware of the political, moral, ethical and policy issues associated with the relation between culture and inequality in contemporary societies, and be able to critically reflect on this.