In a Degree in Cultural Studies, an introductory course has to be considered as a map that allows students to orientate themselves in the wide territory of the discipline, functioning as a view of the different aspects that will have to be developed in detail in the rest of the Degree. In this sense, the competencies to be acquired could be summarized as follows: - Knowing the different paradigms and approaches of cultural studies that have conditioned the history of the discipline, with special emphasis on its origins in the 70s, and its subsequent dissemination in various geographical areas, particularly the Latin American school . - Link the different currents of cultural studies with a series of problems and recurrent issues in the discipline. These problems are centered as much on the analysis and interpretation of a series of literary texts as on the necessary immersion of them in the cultural system from which they come. - Have a series of conceptual and methodological tools that enable the student to carry out these analyzes in a personalized manner. - To promote the critical capacity of reading, both of the mechanisms that make up a work and of the ideological dimension that sustains its particular representation of the world.

The aim of this subject is to present a historical panorama by showing the origin and singular characteristics of cultural studies. It is an objective to relate them with the close more traditional disciplines, as philosophy and social sciences, especially sociology and anthropology. An especial emphasis will be on the transdisciplinary methodology of cultural studies, as in them converge topics and methods of the literary theory, semiotics, ethnomethodology, communication theory, as well as philosophy and sociology. This does not mean that the result would be a mere summation or even worse, a reduction to some of these disciplines. The student should understand what is peculiar to the perspective of the cultural analysis, and how it concerns to the multiple phenomena which define the contemporary culture and its ancestries. Somehow, it is a subject that shows a general view on the overall degree, as the topics will be developed later: 1. The Birmingham School and the beginning of the cultural studies 2. The cultural criticism of Frankfurt School 3. Influences of semiotics and structuralism on cultural analysis 4. The poststructuralist perspective 5. The ¿Cultural Wars¿ and the perspective of cultural studies 6. Cultural criticism from subalternities.

- Reading and analysis of a series of basic texts pertaining to literary theory. Relate these texts with the global problem of the topic or issue where they are located. (4 ECTS) - Practical exercises of analysis of different literary fragments using the theoretical approach or perspective required for the analysis. To show the plurality of possible readings for the same text, according to the capacity of theoretical problematization based on an interpretative argumentation process. These exercises will constitute a series of three practices throughout the course, conducted in groups and led by the teacher. (1.5 ETCS) - Custom tutorials (0.25 ETCS) - Assistance to public events selected for their relevance to the program and the objectives of the course (conferences, seminars, book presentation, etc.). (0, 25 ECTS)