Youth Subcultures

University of Thessaly

Department of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology

Academic year 2011-1012

Winter semester

Course: Youth Subcultures

a.Summary

This  course is structured around two main axes:

    1.Introduction to the concept of youth subculture. Theories having been developed since 1950s up to nowdays will be dealt with:

Ø      Center for Cultural Studies in Birmingham, uk

Ø      New wave, USA

Ø      New             approaches

Ø      Feminism

     Main points of teaching are:

Ø      Beatniks

Ø      Hippies

Ø      Mods

Ø      Punk

Ø      Hip-hop

Ø      Hooligans

Ø      Girls’Subcultures

Ø      Hegemony and Style

      2.Each student presents two(2) articles in the class and writes  a paper for the final assessment as well.

b.suggested readings

1.      Hall, Stuart and Tony Jefferson (eds) 1998 [1975]. Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain. London, UK: Routledge.

2.       Hebdige, Dick 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London, UK: Routledge

3. J. Patrick Williams, ‘Youth-Subculture Studies: Sociological Traditions and Core Concepts’, Sociology Compass 1 (2007): 572–93, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.000043.x

Introduction to The Folk/Popular Studies

This course aims at introducing students into understanding historical, social and political conditions in the 19^th century which brought to the fore a turn to studying folk culture. So it focuses firstly on how folk culture is  related to the process of forming nation-state and crystalizing national identity. Secondly it projects the national theme on the global stage of this period. Thirdly it is concerned with the changes in the Second World war period , mainly explores how attention shifts from the folk culture to the popular one.

   So the main points of this course are:

1.      Defining culture

2.      Enlightment, colonization and Social Anthropology

3.      Romanticism and Folklore

4.      English Folklore and German Volkskunde

5.      Folklore and USA in the late  19^th  century

6.      Fallmerayer, Great Idea, Newly-established nation-state and Greek Folklore Studies(Laographia)

7.       Theory of continuity and  methodology

8.      The founder of Greek   Folklore Studies:N.Politis

9.      Stilpon Kyriakidis and N. Politis: a comparative approach

10.  Folklore Studies after the Second World War: relationships with social anthropology

11.  From folk to popular culture