CULTURAL POLICIES

This course contributes to the overall learning objectives of the degree in Economics and Administration of Arts and Culture, by training students to know, recognize, and critically appraise the policy dimension of culture.
The course has the ambition to present to future arts and cultural managers a view of culture and the arts as social phenomena, deeply involved in political debates and enrolled in transformative ambitions. It is designed as an introduction to why and how cultural policies are shaped and implemented at the local, national, and international scale. Lectures and active learning interactions with students will promote a view of theories and practices of cultural policy as embedded in urban planning, intercultural and international relations, management practices, public administration, creative industries, global media, and business players, as well as local social movements. Cultural policies will be analysed from a historical, comparative, and practical perspective, with a focus on the key players in the field, both public and private, the intersection with other public policies, and the strategic challenges that regions and cities are facing.

Through this course, students are expected to develop a solid understanding of how policies on culture are shaped and their impacts on the development of society in terms of the make-up of local, national, and global orders; their role in the shaping of cultural practices, expressions, and ideology; their relations to production and enterprising and hence their role in the shaping of our identity, taste, and value as well as economy and policy.

In particular, students are expected to:
1) have developed an understanding of what cultural policy is (solid knowledge of key concepts, terminology, and debates, which inform thinking about cultural policies)
2) have developed an understanding of how cultural policies are shaped at the urban, national and international levels (solid knowledge the key issues and events in the formation of, and responses to, cultural policy initiatives)
3) be able to identify specific cultural policies expressed both explicitly and implicitly through legislation, guidelines, initiatives, and other actions as well as community responses to these policies
4) be able to critically analyse specific cultural policies in terms of policymaking (the who, the how, the why, and the intended and unintended consequences of a policy)
5) Have developed or stengthened academic research abilities: specifically, to generate, craft, develop a research idea, socialize it with peers, and critically discuss it in public.

To take full advantage of the learning experience proposed in this course students are expected to have an advanced knowledge of both the artistic and managerial aspects of cultural production. A keen interest for political aspects such as collective goals, common goods, social transformation, ideology, and conflict will facilitate the understanding of some key discussions proposed during the lectures and in the required materials. Some familiarity with the fundamentals of western philosophy and historical periodization, especially of the XX° century, would also be convenient.

The course is organized in 5 main thematic blocks:

1) The culture of cultural policy
Which cultural forms and practices have traditionally been considered the responsibility of cultural policy and which have not
High/low culture debate
How cultural activities have been conceived over time (cultural industries, creative economy, creative industries, cultural consumption, cultural capital)

2)The policy of cultural policy
Cultural policy as a form of public policy
Who makes cultural policy? How?
Cultural policy as text, discourse, process and practice
How, where and why cultural policies travel

3) City level: urban cultural policies
Why cultural policies in the cities?
How? Variety of ways in which urban policymakers use culture for policy agendas (economic development, quality of life, city branding, regeneration…)
Consequences? What is at stake and what is at risk in this instrumental use of culture

4) State level: national cultural policies
From direct management of arts and culture to arm’s length approach
Typology of national cultural policy approaches
Specific countries + cross-national comparisons
Interplay between party politics and cultural policy

5) Global level: international cultural policies
Cultural trade, cultural diplomacy, cultural diversity
Agencies of international cultural policy
Global level: international cultural policies
Cultural trade, cultural diplomacy, cultural diversity
Agencies of international cultural policy

The following book is required for the course:

Bell, D. & Oakley, K., Cultural Policy, 2015 Routledge

Further optional readings backing up each block of the course will be suggested and shared via Moodle.

Research Paper (70% of the grade) + Oral exam (30% of the grade)

Research paper (70% of the grade):
Students are required to write a research paper (3000-4000 words) on a cultural policy topic of their choice, drawing from theoretical aspects of cultural policy, case studies encountered during lectures, insights from additional reading, engagement in contemporary discussion in the media or from personal experience. The research paper will have to look like an expanded essay that presents the student’s own thinking and interpretation backed up by the ideas of scholars and experts in the field. The research paper will have to feature a review of the literature that requires to research information and then summarize and paraphrasing. It will then add the step of synthesizing the information and developing the student’s own insight or argument on the topic or issue that the information presents. In the research paper, the student is expected to address one central question and develop a thesis, i.e. the answer to the question thus anticipating the type of intellectual exercise that is required for the master thesis. The research paper must be handed in by the date of the oral exam.
This evaluation is designed to assess students' learning outcomes 3-5 (students' ability to identify and critically analyse a specific cultural policy, locating it in a relevant cultural policy debate, while developing/strengthening academic research abilities).

Oral exam (30% of the grade):
A final oral exam on the course contents (key concepts, terminology, debates, and events relating to cultural policymaking, both in general and at the urban/national/international level).
This evaluation is designed to assess students' learning outcomes 1-2 (what cultural policies are and how, why and with which effects they are shaped).

The course is elective and as such deliberately designed for students who wish to actively engage in a conversation with the professor and their peers. Class participation isn’t therefore “strongly advised” but rather taken for granted as a key element of the learning pact that is implicitly signed by enrolling in the course. The professor will of course cover the topics discussed and analyzed in the required readings but the views of students will form an integral part of the teaching method.

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