Communication

This course considers a variety of contemporary configurations of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, age, religion, and other categories of difference. Students learn to examine the way in which these “crucial differences” are constituted in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, as well as to analyze the ways in which they function on social, cultural, political, and symbolic levels. The emergence of the various social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, such as the women's movement, the civil rights movement, and gay and lesbian liberation, and their lasting impact on society today, serves as a starting point of the course. It examines how these diverse movements have shaped and reshaped the form and content of the identity of various minority groups on individual and collective levels. Special attention will be directed to the notion of intersectionality, which refers to the interaction between multiple categories of difference in cultural, social and individual practices, and the effects of these interactions in terms of power and inequality. Subsequently, it takes a closer look at the complexity of such multiple differences and inequalities by tracing the entangled workings of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, age, and religion through a variety of topical cases. The course looks at the way in which such categories realign in various contexts of crisis and conflict, ranging from the late twentieth century wars in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to the complex force-fields of (neo-)nationalism, populism, and xenophobia today. Students examine the rapidly shifting status of the human body in technologically advanced societies, zooming in, for example, on the role of cosmetic surgery as a technology of gender, race, and class. Students theorize and analyze the complex relations between norms of gender and sexuality in the structuring of contemporary performances of identity in a variety of social, cultural, and institutional environments. Contemporary constructions of whiteness and the role of race in the construction of national identity are critically examined. Special attention is paid to the emergence of sexual nationalisms across and beyond Europe today, focusing on the prominent place that women's sexual liberation and gay rights occupy in contemporary debates about Islam and multicultural citizenship. As these cases indicate, the course draws on a variety of geographical and cultural locations and contexts. Diversity is also exemplified in the interdisciplinarity that characterizes gender and diversity studies as a scholarly field. The texts used in this course draw on theories and methods from disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies, as well as from the fields of feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and queer studies. Through critical inquiry into concrete cases as well as major texts–including modern classics in the field such as Judith Butler's GENDER TROUBLE and Joan Scott's THE POLITICS OF THE VEIL–this course dynamically re-conceptualizes the intersections between the various “crucial differences” by examining the multiple ways in which processes of identity and difference, inclusion and exclusion, equality and inequality are produced and reproduced in ongoing flows of negotiation and transformation. Prerequisites for this course are a relevant intermediate-level course in the Humanities or Social Sciences.

This course covers the specificities of journalism and communication. This includes some reminders about journalistic writing, rules, and deontology. The course focuses on a mainly practical approach. Students create a media together (print and/or online). The editorial line is chosen together and students define sections, subjects, angles and formats (report, interview, portrait, investigation etc.) and then begin writing, taking pictures, and bringing together all the work produced within a single website or paper to have a final team production by the end of the course.

This course covers foundations of brand management and marketing communications (including advertising). The course takes a strong consumer-based focus, therefore the foundation of branding and advertising in consumer behavior and consumer psychology theories are discussed. The course discusses theory that is at the foundation of branding and advertising and then applies it through team assignments on students' chosen brands. The course consists of two parts: The first part covers brand management. In this part of the course, the nature of brands in consumers' minds, the concept of brand equity, and instruments to build and leverage brands are discussed. The second part of the course focuses on integrated marketing communications. This part of the course looks at the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications, the communication process, and theories of consumer behavior and response.

This course writing in general by introducing the fundamental skills used by professional writers within the Media and Communications industries. Through a workshop format, students work on their own news stories in order to enhance their mastery of written communication. Students become familiar with strategies for planning, editing and revising their work, as well as that of others. The course also covers various styles and contexts of media writing and the various writing skills required to communicate effectively to mass audiences. In addition, through the lecture format, students are introduced to ways of viewing media prose critically by way of theoretical considerations such as rhetoric, the relationship between print media and democracy and between journalism and public relations, editorial constraints, and audience analysis

This course explores the question of strategic communication within and between commercial and political organizations from an interactionist perspective. The first part of the course analyzes communication techniques that present information both in commercial and non-commercial situations. The course examines which factors determine the ability to formulate and disseminate a message. The course then studies the fundamental principles of marketing by analyzing the effects of various media through which strategic communication takes place. Among other mediums, the course considers direct marketing, public relations, sponsorship (individual and collective), and the Internet.