LFU:online

Students can identify and critically discuss various methods for researching DIY movements and contextualize these against the historic background of DIY movements withn the US.

Our focus in this Proseminar will be on contemporary do-it-yourself cultures. While DIY had often been relegated to the domain of enthusiastic dilettantism in its beginnings, amateurism, both in terms of ideologies and practice, has gained an ever stronger foothold on the cultural landscape with serious political, economic and environmental potentials. Thus, against the backdrop of Fordist regimes of accumulation (and their according determinants of professionalism, market ecologies, and production of cultural identities), we will examine do-it-yourself cultures in a variety of areas, such as fashion, music, urban gardening, fan fiction writing and computing.

Readings, discussions, and session moderations in expert teams.

Contributions in class and written assignment (term-paper). 

will be distributed in the first session of class

for the Bachelor Program (612): positive completion of compulsory module 14
for Bachelor Program Lehramt (457): positive completion of compulsory module 16

For students of the BA Teacher Training Program (457), it is strongly recommended to have passed the VU Introduction to American Cultures.