16 UC/15 BA(Hons),MA/1
UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY
Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha
Template 3: UC Regulation Changes
Proposal Description
R
http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/regulations/award/bahons_regs.shtml
http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/regulations/award/ma_regs.shtml
Purpose of the proposal
To change the requirements to complete the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours and Master of Arts in Cultural
Studies by discontinuing the requirement to take CULT401 (Cultural Studies, Globalisation and New Technologies).
Justification
The Cultural Studies curriculum has lost a number of CULT-coded and CULT-approved contributing courses recently due
to staff changes in the College of Arts. CULT401 (Cultural Studies, Globalisation and New Technologies) has to date been
listed as a compulsory course for students undertaking Hons-level and Masters Part 1 study in this subject. The course
reflected the expertise of its lecturers, Drs Kevin Glynn and Julie Cupples, both of whom have now left the University of
Canterbury. The Cultural Studies programme no longer has academics with this expertise available to teach this course.
The removal of CULT401 -- and its requirement as a compulsory course for Cultural Studies students at 400-level -- is
also in line with curriculum changes being discussed by the Cultural Studies Programme Committee, including the
establishment of new pathways of study through Cultural Studies (pathways reflecting the expertise of current teachers
in this subject at UC). Specifically the course offerings at Honours level will be strengthened by the addition of several
new co-coded courses. In order to complete a BA with Honours or Part 1 in the MA in Cultural Studies students will be
required to take four CULT courses, including CULT402 (compulsory research project).
The Cultural Studies Curriculum Committee agreed that the Graduate Profile for CULT at level 8 would be better
delivered via a range of co-coded courses at 400 level, in combination with the compulsory CULT402 Supervised
Research – rather than by a single core course that tended to change anyway, depending on who was available to teach
it. Hence, we have ensured that the courses chosen for CULT co-coding at honours level all deal centrally with the
following Graduate Attributes associated with our Cultural Studies Programme:
· Advanced knowledge of concepts and debates in contemporary critical and cultural theory
· Advanced ability to deploy Cultural Studies concepts in analysis of cultural texts of various kinds
· Advanced ability to conduct Cultural Studies research
· Advanced ability to relate cultural texts of various kinds to their broader historical and political context.
It will be evident from the following learning outcomes for each of our 400-level courses that all four of these attributes
are served by every course:
(Courses already offered under CULT codes:)


CULT408 Chinese AV Narratives in the Age of Globalisation: learning outcomes include engagement with theories
of globalisation, transnationalism and cross-cultural translation; mass culture and elite culture; taste and
technologisation; advanced ability to apply these theories to analysis of AV texts.
CULT418 Writing Nature, Representing Animals: learning outcomes include advanced knowledge of specific fields
of cultural studies research including ecocriticism, zoocriticism and human-animal studies; advanced knowledge of
theoretical debates regarding modernity, postmodernity, humanism and posthumanism.
(Courses for which new CULT codes are proposed:)

CULT410 Multispecies Ethnography: learning outcomes include critical understanding of posthumanist theory,
dualist thought systems, and the multispecies turn in the humanities and social sciences; and knowledge of key
concepts including coevolution, companion species, mutual ecology, the human microbiome, and the
Anthropocene.
16 UC/15 BA(Hons),MA/1



CULT416 Constructing Feminist History: learning outcomes include advanced knowledge of feminist theory and
practice, the “public” and “private” spheres framework; feminist historical empiricism; domesticity, sexuality and
the challenge of masculinity studies; the equality versus difference debate; the impact of the crisis of
representation; and women’s complicity in imperialism.
CULT419 The Politics and Policies of Sex: learning outcomes include advanced knowledge of theoretical debates
regarding reproductive rights, law reforms, queer culture and homophobia, prostitution, sexual rights, pornography
and eroticism, sex education and the hidden curriculum, sex and harrassment, sexual violence, safe sex and the
HIV/AIDS era, sexuality and ageing, cultural sexualities, the medicalisation of sexuality and the transgendered body.
CULT420 Te Matakihi: Indigenous Critical Theory: learning outcomes include advanced knowledge of, and ability
to deploy, the work of cultural studies theorists of racial and cultural difference (including Frantz Fanon, Albert
Memmi, Edward Said, Malcolm X, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak and others); ability to develop theories of
emancipation, imperialism, indigeneity and counter-hegemony in the context of Aoetearoa New Zealand; advanced
understanding of theories of neoliberalism, biculturalism and multiculturalism.
It will also be apparent that this range of courses caters strongly to the new UC Graduate Profile, specifically:
Attribute 1 (Critical competence in a core academic discipline): all
Attribute 2 (Work-readiness and Employability): all cultural studies courses have at their heart advance forms of
innovative critical thinking, as well as advanced skills in writing, group work and oral presentation.
Attribute 3 (Bicultural awareness): especially CULT420, but also CULT418 and CULT418, which have a significant focus
on the bicultural aspects of Aotearoa New Zealand history.
Attribute 4 (Community engagement): CULT402, the supervised research project, involves students in participatory
research and analysis of particular cultural, subcultural or countercultural communities. Various of the other CULT 400level courses do this as well.
Attribute 5 (Global awareness): Cultural Studies is fundamentally concerned with globalisation and
internationalisation, so all courses contribute to delivery of this attribute.
Calendar Form
New Regulations
2015 UC Calendar
Page 182
CULT402 (Cultural Studies Supervised Research) and three other CULT 400-level courses.
(that is, please remove reference to CULT401)
Page 193
Part I: Four CULT 400-level courses, including CULT402 (Cultural Studies Supervised Research)).
(that is, please remove reference to CULT401)
Page 571
Delete the entry for CULT401 (Cultural Studies, Globalisation and New Technologies)