They’ve specialized in Literature, Civilization or Communication, are graduate students, they are quite fluent in English -some are even native speakers, want to become Web editors or journalists, are mainly interested in culture and the arts, and are compelled to attend two sociology courses in their Masters’ degree syllabus. What to teach them and how to do it is what I’ve been tackling with since the creation of these courses. The whole purpose being that the slight taste of sociology the students get enhances the skills they already have and that sociology as a tool for grasping society widens their perspectives on culture and art as social processes set in specific contexts. My stand is that a hands-on experience of sociology is better than a text-based one.
I first designed an M1 course in partnership with some cultural institutions programming US photographers or video makers (Fondation Henri Cartier Bresson, Jeu de Paume, for instance). The students had free regular access to the exhibitions so as to Continuer la lecture