Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science: Sustainability and Popular Culture

For this course, popular culture is defined as the entirety of attitudes, ideas, images, perspectives, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given Culture. The most common pop culture categories are: entertainment, sports, news, politics, and fashion.

The course aims to increase your awareness and understanding of popular culture and its representations of sustainability and nature.

The course is divided into three parts:

Part 1 will provide an overview of the competing theories and concepts surrounding popular culture and its linkages with sustainability.

Part 2 examines case studies, such as sustainable fashion, food, political campaigns, and advertising, and critically analyses how they represent sustainability. In this part, the complexities of popular culture are in focus. Examples of questions that can be discussed: How advertisement and entertainment influence the ways we imagine nature and the environment; and how ideas about sustainability are communicated in politics through political campaigns.

Part 3 asks what sustainability studies learn from popular culture, for example, by analysing the media strategies of successful sustainability initiatives. The course will, for example, analyse visual data to understand how visual methods such as photography and documentary film create arenas for the public to engage with and discuss sustainability.

Course literature

The course literature listed may be updated up to eight weeks before the course begins.

Entry requirements

At least 40 ECTS credits from the programme SAESS Masterprogram i Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science (also called LUMES).

Selection criteria

Seats are allocated according to: ECTS (HPAV): 100 %.

Tuition fees for non-EU/EEA citizens

Citizens of countries outside:

• The European Union (EU)
• The European Economic Area (EEA) and
• Switzerland

are required to pay tuition fees. You pay an instalment of the tuition fee in advance of each
semester.

Tuition fees, payments and exemptions

Full programme/course tuition fee: SEK 18,750
First payment: SEK 18,750

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Note that you may also need to pay an application fee, or provide proof of exemption.

Application fee

No tuition fees for citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland

There are no tuition fees for citizens of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland.