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Unit of Study COM20001 - Culture, Technology and the Senses (2020)

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Unit Snapshot

  • Enrolment information

    N/A

Unit description

Introduces students to the critical analysis of vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell and their experience in technological and cultural contexts. Students become acquainted with the philosophy and history of discourses and practices relating to sense experience. Social and political dimensions of sensory practices in digital culture, everyday life and the media are examined. Relationships between the senses and characteristics of individual senses are investigated, and their consequences for the production of knowledge and creative practice considered. Students engage in the critical analysis of their sensory experience of technologies, places and texts throughout the unit.  

Unit content

  • Discourses of sense experience.
  • Sense experience and technological and cultural context.
  • Social and political implications of sensory practices.
  • Relationships between vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell.
  • The reconfiguration of sensory practices by digital practices.
  • Technologies of sensory substitution.

 

Availabilities

Location Domestic International
Online
Session2
Session2

Learning outcomes and graduate attributes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

GA1: Intellectual rigour, GA2: Creativity, GA3: Ethical practice, GA4: Knowledge of a discipline, GA5: Lifelong learning, GA6: Communication and social skills, GA7: Cultural competence
Learning outcome count Learning outcome description GA1 GA2 GA3 GA4 GA5 GA6 GA7
1 identify key concepts and discourses relating to vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell
2 articulate the relationship between sense experience and its cultural and technological contexts
3 understand the social and political implications of different sensory technologies and practices
4 examine qualities of vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell and consider how they relate to each other
5 critically analyse how places, texts and creative practices, including digital practices, use sense experience to generate meaning

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

  1. identify key concepts and discourses relating to vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell
    • GA1:
  2. articulate the relationship between sense experience and its cultural and technological contexts
    • GA7:
  3. understand the social and political implications of different sensory technologies and practices
    • GA1:
    • GA7:
  4. examine qualities of vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell and consider how they relate to each other
    • GA2:
  5. critically analyse how places, texts and creative practices, including digital practices, use sense experience to generate meaning
    • GA1:
    • GA2:

Prescribed learning resources

Prescribed Texts
  • No prescribed texts.

Prescribed Learning Resources may change in future Teaching Periods.