Subject Area: French Studies
This course can also be studied in the following specialisation: European Studies

You will look at different forms of French popular culture from the early twentieth century through to the present. While our central focus looks at postwar developments in media, mass culture, cinema and music, we will also look back at genres such as music-hall, vaudeville and the cancan. The course is organised according to four themes based upon areas associated with cultural production: Montmartre, La Rive gauche, Marseille and the contemporary Parisian banlieues. You will learn to analyse using different theoretical models of popular culture as we familiarise ourselves with different principal thinkers such as Barthes, Bourdieu and Zizek. You will also be encouraged to consider the socio-economic and political contexts in which popular culture is generated and inevitably consumed. Taught in English.