Podcast
Giselinde Kuipers & Luuc Brans (KULeuven, Belgium)

Outline
This first episode introduces the central theme of this course: the relation between culture and inequality. In this episode, Luuc Brans represents the “student voice”, questioning Giselinde Kuipers on the use and relevance of  foundational texts. Luuc and Giselinde will discuss why and how this culture and inequality have become such a central theme in sociology and other disciplines (notably cultural studies, anthropology), how this relation this been theorized in various theoretical traditions (Bourdieusian field theory, British cultural studies, and American cultural sociology); and how this has been empirically analyzed. Moreover, we will offer a first exploration of the continued relevance of these insights on culture and inequality for contemporary societies, and for the everyday life of (young) people today.

Readings
All readings are listed in order of suggested reading. 

Bourdieu, Pierre (1994). Social space and symbolic space. In Calhoun, Craig et al. (eds.) Contemporary Sociological Theory, 345-358.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1986) The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, 241-258. New York: Greenwood.
Hall, Stuart (1980). Encoding/decoding. In Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Love, andPaul Willis (eds.), Culture, Media, Language, pp. 128–38. London: Hutchinson. Visit link.
Lamont, Michele (1992). Implications, contributions and unanswered questions. In Money, Morals and Manners, 174-192. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kuipers, Giselinde (2006). Television and taste hierarchy: The case of Dutch television comedy. Media, Culture & Society 28(3): 359-378.

Additional materials
Video: Carle, Pierre (2002). La sociologie est un sport de combat. Pierre Bourdieu. Documentary.
Video: Hall, Stuart (1997). Representation and media. Open University.
Video: Lamont, Michele (2016). Doing sociology. American Sociological Association.

Assignments
1a. Reflection on own experience/application of theory:
Try to describe own social position/trajectory in terms of relevant social categories in contemporary society? How this is reflected in your cultural tastes and practices? Are you aware of this, and if so, when?

Now try to think of concrete instances where you meet and (have to) assess other people, such as a dating app or other social media, a meeting with new housemates or neighbors, a meeting with new people on vacation? How is important is culture (broadly defined) in such instances? Try to think of concrete examples: How and when did you draw symbolic boundaries? Can you remember moments when you rejected someone on the basis of culture? When someone else rejected you? Can you also remember moments of conflicting or failed ‘decodings’? What happened? How did this feel?  Can you imagine any long-term consequences of this?

1b. Theoretical/reading assignment
For each of the texts, identify what you think are the five main theoretical concepts and write them down. Compare the concepts for each of the texts. Is there any overlap? Can you explain why/why not?

How are these terms related to the central themes of this course, culture and inequality? Sort the key theoretical concepts of the texts into two categories, the ‘culture’ concepts and the ‘inequality’ concepts? Is there any overlap? Are there any words left?  To wrap up this assignment/discussion, try to formulate to yourself if, and how, this assignment for you have clarified your understanding of theoretical approaches to culture and inequality.

Podcast
Giselinde Kuipers & Luuc Brans (KULeuven, Belgium)

Outline
This episode follows directly on the first episode, and again features “student voice” Luuc Brans interviewing Giselinde Kuipers. It discusses the relevance of classic theories of culture and inequality in the 21^stcentury: how does cultural distinction work in an era of globalization, meritocracy, individualism and reflexive, ironic consumption?  How can we expand notions of cultural capital and cultural inclusion and exclusion beyond social class, to include other dimensions of inequality such as age, gender, race and ethnicity?

Readings
All readings are listed in order of suggested reading. 

Prieur, Annick, and Mike Savage (2013). Emerging forms of cultural capital. European Societies 15.2 : 246-267.
Michael, Janna (2015). It’s really not hip to be a hipster: Negotiating trends and authenticity in the cultural field. Journal of Consumer Culture 15(2), 163-182.
Weenink, Don (2008). Cosmopolitanism as a form of capital: Parents preparing their children for a globalizing world. Sociology 42(6):1089-1106.
Lamont, Michele, Beljean, Stefan, & Clair, Matthew (2014). What is missing? Cultural processes and causal pathways to inequality. Socio-Economic Review 12(3): 573-608.

Additional materials:
Piketty, Thomas. Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right: Rising Inequality and the Changing Structure of Political Conflict. WID. world Working Paper, 2018, 7. Visit link.
Wilkinson, Richard, & Pickett, Kate (2010). The spirit level: Why equality is better for everyone. Penguin UK.

Assignment
2. Reflection on own experience/application of theory: The issue of conversion of cultural capital
The implication, both in this week’s and last week’s session, is that cultural capital can be converted into other resources or advantages. This could be either from more fleeting to more durable forms of capital (eg cultural knowledge or taste into diplomas), or from cultural capital into economic capital (diplomas into money) or social capital (good taste into more or more well-connected friends).  On the basis of this week’s and last week’s material, discuss the following questions.  How and when is cultural capital converted into other resources and advantages? What sort of advantages or resources? Does this happen automatically? What factors facilitate or hamper such conversions? Try to think of concrete examples, from your own experience or studies that you have consulted? Can you think of specific fields, institutions or organizations that are important in facilitating such conversions? Or in hampering them?  Do ‘old’ and ‘new’ forms of cultural capital work differently? If yes, how and why? If no, why not?

Podcast
Dave O’Brien (University of Edinburgh, UK) & Laurie Hanquinet (Universite Libre de Bruxelles, BE)

Outline
This episode features Dave O’Brien, interviewing Laurie Hanquinet who discuss inequality in sociology of cultural consumption. Cultural consumption matters in lots of different ways, from telling us about the value and meaning of cultural objects, through how people get access to jobs and professions, to underpinning power and inequality across entire societies! The episode discusses how cultural hierarchies have changed over time, but social inequalities seem to have persisted. It looks in particular at class and race within these social and cultural hierarchies, reflecting on the new forms of distinction adopted by social elites who are superficially open and democratic in their cultural tastes.

Readings
All readings are listed in order of suggested reading. 

Hanquinet, Laurie (2018). Inequalities: when culture becomes a capital’ in Durrer, V., Miller, T. and O’Brien, D. (2018) The Routledge Handbook of Global Cultural Policy. London: Routledge
Banks, P. (2012). Cultural Socialization in Black Middle-Class Families. Cultural Sociology 6(1) 61-73
Friedman, Sam and Reeves, Aaron (2020). From Aristocratic to Ordinary: Shifting Modes of Elite Distinction. American Sociological Review 85(2): 323-350.
Hazir, I. and Warde, A. (2016) ‘The cultural omnivore thesis: Methodological aspects of the debate’ in Hanquinet and Savage (eds)Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Art and Culture London: Routledge

Podcast
Philippa Chong (McMaster University, Canada) & Jennifer Lena (Columbia University, US)

Outline
In this episode, Phillipa Chong speaks to Jennifer Lena on shifting inequalities and cultural hiearchies in arts. Zooming in on developments in American arts in the past century, they try to understand how culture  has remained exclusive, as social elites and cultural institutions (seemingly) became open and democratic in their cultural tastes. The discuss such questions as: how did the boundaries of what counts as art shift, and how can we trace this is American museums such as the Met? And how did elites hold on to power in the process of opening up the arts? How should we asses the role of cultural entrepreneurs like Rockefeller – was he a villain or a hero in this story? And what do we gain from looking at art to study the dynamics of culture and power?

Readings
All readings are listed in order of suggested reading. 

Lena, Jennifer. C. (2019).  Chapter 3: The Museum of Primitive Art.  Entitled: Discriminating tastes and the expansion of the arts. Princeton University Press. Pp 41-68.
Chong, Phillipa. (2018). Everyone’s A Critic? Openness as a Means to Closure in Cultural Journalism’, The M in CITAMS@ 30 (Studies in Media and Communications, Volume 18).

Additional materials
https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wess/wess_dev_issues/dsp_policy_01.pdf
Images/slides

Assignments
Discussion questions: We often talk about inequality, but what about equality?  What would spaces like the MET, or the pages of a book review section look like if there were perfect equality?
Task: Curate an exhibit or a book review section that represents your vision of equality in the Arts. What vision of equality is implied in your curation?

Podcast
Dave O’Brien (University of Edinburgh, UK) & Jennifer Lena (Columbia University, US)

Outline
This is the second episode dedicated to inequalities and shifting inequalities in the production of culture. In this episode Dave O’Brien talks to Jennifer Lena discuss the production of culture perspective in the sociology of culture, discussing such questions as: Why do cultural producers discriminate when they think they are open to novelty? Why is it so difficult for people of colour or lower class people to enter the cultural industries? And how can we study such processes of exclusion in the cultural industry when people are not aware of them and so adamantly reject that they discriminate?

Readings
All readings are listed in order of suggested reading. 

Brook, O., O’Brien, D. and Taylor, M. (2020) Culture is bad for you: Inequality in the cultural and creative industries Manchester: Manchester University Press, Chapters 2 and 8.
Lena, Jennifer (2019). Entitled: Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapters 2 and 7.
Koppman, Sharon (2016). Different Like Me: Why Cultural Omnivores Get Creative Jobs. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(2): 291–33
Childress, Clayton and Nault, Jean-Francois (2019). Encultured Biases: The Role of Products in Pathways to Inequality. American Sociological Review 84(1): 115-141.

Assignmens

1. Discussion question about the relevance of sociology to understanding cultural production. Starting with the question posed by Dr. Lena: How do you make a hit song? The processes by which some cultural products become successful, while the majority fails, is a mystery, also to people working in cultural production? What can sociologists or social scientists contribute to our understanding of such process?

Discussion questions about the production of culture perspective: 1. Why and how does it matter how culture is produced? Would a different type of organization lead to a different (better? worse? more or less diverse?) type of culture? How and why? 2. Isn’t the large inequality in culture not just a matter of overproduction, that is: too many people want to become artists/musicians/performers/writers/actors? And why do so many want to work in cultural production? 3. Can we do things differently? If the production of culture is so bound up with inequality, what can we do to improve this? And who (which persons, which organizations or institutions) could or should take the lead?