[LONG] Spring 2019 Course Reviews (SASH68-86-74-61)

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SASH68 Critical Animal Studies: Animals in Society, Culture and the Media
My advice? Take this unit, it will be the best thing you ever do (at least intellectually) on exchange

Structure: 
You will receive (the best resource ever put together) a Course Reader before the first lecture: this pdf document outlines absolutely everything you need to know for the unit. In terms of teaching and learning, the course 10 weeks long and split into five 'themes'. Each theme represents a core conceptual/theoretical framework of the Critical Animal Studies (CAS) field:

Theme 1: Introduction to the critical study of human-animal relations
Theme 2: Social constructions, positions, and representations of animals
Theme 3: Speciesist welfarism and intersectional oppression
Theme 4: Power, dehumanization, and the suffering of others
Theme 5: Animals and social change: Communication and action

Each class is taught in  a three-hour block, but the class varies every two weeks. Each theme begins with a lecture, (usually three separate 1 hour lectures with a 15 minute break in between each hour), and the following week follows with a more discussion-based, interactive seminar centred on that particular week's theme. Note: although lectures are not compulsory, attendance at seminar is (but go to all the classes, they're great!) 

This was my most structured unit throughout my exchange. I liked having the Course Reader as a reference point: not only did it include a clear list of instructions on how to prepare for each theme/seminar, signposting for the readings (i.e., pointers for you to consider when you've read through the literature, questions to think about), but the expectations of each class - in terms of what content would be covered and what students should be ready for - was made clear. 

Assessment:
  • Pass/Fail: Seminar attendance, participation and fortnightly theme reflections (to be submitted via the course platform Live@Lund 24-hours after the seminar). You need to pass each of these assessments in order to complete and pass the course overall. 
  • Graded: "Course Paper", an academic paper written from a CAS perspective on an issue of your choice concerning human-animal relations. The final essay should be between 2500 - 3500 words. Passing grades range from A to E.
Overall, the assessments for this course are pretty chill all things considered. Probably the most significant stressor is producing the final course paper at the end (but that's kind of like any course, really). The unit is specifically designed/structured (each theme and each seminar) to help you with curating your thesis: the seminar in theme 4 was dedicated to fine-tuning ideas, drafting and receiving feedback on the paper.

The Pass/Fail assignments: super easy. These are more reflective journal assignments, and completing them is a walk in the park - just a reflection upon what you've learned in the theme, what connections you've drawn between the material delivered during lecture, peer discussions and literature. These assignments also give you the opportunity to give feedback on the course: teaching, reading as well as class itself; and ask questions related to class or the course paper. 

Participation in Seminars: you'll get as much out of this unit as what you put in. The discussions are fruitful and interesting if you put in the work to read/prepare: and the class will be a lot more rewarding and way less stressful. It's well worth it as well to get some rapport with the teaching time, which I'll get on to next... 

Teaching:
The teaching team for Spring 2019 consisted of (in order of teaching):
Guess lecturers:
Holy shit the teaching team for this course is so amazingly wonderful. This unit was so good purely because you could see just how dedicated and passionate the teachers were to the subject - it radiates, from the way they lecture, the slides, the chosen literature and the planned activities during lecture and seminar. 

Best of all, the teaching team make themselves very available for students who want to discuss things about the course in general, and the course paper. They really put in the time and effort for you in class as well as private consultations to help fine-tune your ideas, recommend and send you literature and offer suggestions for improvement. 

All teachers are insanely approachable, although a couple might seem reserved, they're all really very friendly. 

Reading: No lie, there's a lot of readings per week, but the articles in and of themselves aren't very long. You're not checked or forced to mention anything about the reading in class, but obviously doing every single reading before the lecture (although if you do it after the lecture in prep for seminar that's okay too, just not as good haha) will have you better prepared to absorb the content / go over more complex concepts and applications. Like I said before, the more time you invest in the unit, the better rewarded you'll be. 

Rating: 9/10 (based on my subjective experience, structure, teaching and literature). If you want a course that is tightly structured, comprehensive and involves critical thinking: this is perfect for you.

SASH86 Food, Tradition and Innovation
For the love of all things that are good in this world, do NOT take this unit. Holy shit. It sounds interesting and fun but it is the exact fucking opposite.

Structure: What even is the structure of this unit. There is no structure. The unit goes on for 13 weeks and let me tell you, my GOD, 13 weeks is so long. It isn't divided into a focused study on Swedish Food, or Food Practices (e.g., growing, harvesting, producing, preserving, etc.), or Traditions (e.g., Swedish traditional practices surrounding cooking food for instance), or Swedish innovations in food preparation... it's just, random anecdotes on food - and mostly traditions, but not interesting ones. Just the practice that "eating is a ritualistic practice, demarcating time periods, and signifying important cultural events like Christmas." LAME. Also, a lot of the content is repeated by different lectures - demonstrating a lack of cohesion in the course planning too. 

And it's repeated for thirteen weeks. 

Assessment:
  • Pass/Fail: "Food Memory" reflective assignment (just a write-up of you reflecting about a memory you have associated with food + a reflection on a group discussion you have in class); group presentation on a "Food Ethnographic Study" (slide presentation with 4-5 other people).
  • Graded: Take-Home Exam, 52-hours. The exam consists of 6 questions, in which you have to write ideally 1 page, size 12 Times New Roman font single spaced answers to questioned based on the "themes" of the course, connecting the literature to either personal or other real world examples. 
Teaching: Lectures are two hours long and good lord it feels like they drag out for at least 50 million years. I don't know how they could go on any longer. I have three main problems with the lectures:
  1. There is absolutely no critical thought involved in this unit at all. 
  2. Content: way too basic, and therefore, boring as fuck. It's repeated over and over again that "food has been understudied in academia even though it's so central to our lives", and "there are many innovations that have come with food", e.g., food in a can. Roll my eyes. It's like a history lecture: except the history is something that could have been fun but has been made boring in the most painful way possible. There was a lecture on Swedish agricultural practices from the 1800s, for god's sake. No offence, but I don't care. Had we learned about the traditional practices and innovations in lingonberry picking in the North, or techniques of mushroom foraging that would have been interesting (and what I expected when I chose the unit...) but alas, no. 
  3. I'm just gonna have to put this bluntly: the lecturing team's voices, individually and combined, are like ear sandpaper. It filled me with dread going in to each class and wondering how I was going to combat the inevitable boredom and desire to doodle with the fear of not wanting to waste my time and take good notes. 
Reading: disorganised, sometimes even inaccessible online and even in person?? On the class schedule on TimeEdit the literature wasn't even listed correctly for some weeks. How, are students meant to prepare adequately for class if there's a clear issue with the task of proof-reading. It makes the unit just that extra bit more frustrating, but also, the readings that I did find and attempt to read were too damn long and boring. It's not worth elaborating more than this.

Rating: 0/10, avoid like the plague.

SASH74 Swedish Art in a Scandinavian Context 
Structure:
Classes are taught in three-hour lecture blocks, usually on one topic (e.g., Swedish Art in the Middle Ages), with 10 - 15 minute breaks in between each hour.

Assessment:
  • Pass/Fail: Reflective Essay (300 - 500 words), insanely easy - all you need to do is write on your current knowledge of Swedish Art (mine: next to nothing), what you're interested in (e.g., botanical art and the Baroque Courts of the 17th Century in my case), what you hope to learn or get out of the course, what you're excited for, even what kinds of art you dislike (I did! And then wrote that I hoped the course could help me shift my perspective hehe). I submitted this the day of the first lecture to get it out of the way. That's 50% of the assessments done. 
  • Graded: Final Essay (1500 - 2000 words) 
  • Note: NO GROUP WORK - I swear this is the only course offered at Lund University where there is no group work expected from the students enrolled: best thing about this course tbh. 
Reading: Ludvig Qvarnström literally curated and created (or should I say, edited) the textbook for this course and it is utter gold. It's just one book, 413 pages long (but the reading will be less considering formatting, images and reference pages). Some weeks (e.g., Renaissance and Baroque, From Rococo to Romanticism) will be heavier than others, but overall the reading is fair given the scope of the course. The content is not too demanding at least conceptually, and it's pretty easy to follow. 

There are several copies of the physical book located in the LUX Library, or you can use the (free!) online pdf copy found here!

Rating: 3/10
If I'm being 100% honest, this course is really good if you are genuinely already very interested in Swedish art history. Ludvig and Cecelia both include a wealth of content within their lectures, but the 3-hour block that it's taught in is very difficult to sit through. You're just being talked at, about something that you might not find that fascinating (e.g., Medieval Churches and their construction). I chose this course because I thought it would just contribute to my general knowledge about Swedish culture through art-making/developing practices throughout history - which it did to an extent, but it wasn't a course I necessarily enjoyed or got a lot of intellectual stimulation from. You can essentially teach yourself the course by reading the textbook (which I also found difficult to do...) or attending the lectures, but either route towards attaining knowledge is a painful one.

SASH61 Cultural Perspectives on Health, Lifestyle and Medicine

Structure:
Structurally, the course is pretty sound. You'll get a handout at the beginning outlining the course schedule, where lecture topics are announced. The topics covered include:
  1. Introduction: cultural perspectives on health, lifestyle and medicine (comparative study of international student national + ethnic backgrounds)
  2. Globalisation and health
  3. Gender and everyday life
  4. Medical visualisations + excursion to Medical Museion, Copenhagen 
  5. Children and Medicine
  6. Reproductive Health
  7. Culture and History of Psychiatry 
  8. Culture + Medical Encounters 
  9. Course Summary
Assessment:
  • Pass/Fail: Group work: "Medical Ethnographic Study" - where you choose a medical issue and then conduct ethnographic fieldwork before putting together a presentation for the rest of the class. Pretty straightforward. Topics ranged from yoga and veganism to anti-depressant medication. 
  • Graded: 2 essays, 1500 - 2000 words each.
    The first essay question is handed out literally right after the Ethnographic Study presentation, in class. This essay question was heavily based off the reading, requiring direct reference to one of the core books of the course, as well as 2-3 supplementary articles.
    The second essay question was specific to one of the week's topics and relied on a comparative analysis of two or more cultural perspectives on said chosen topic. It was more difficult to answer than the first question, but otherwise pretty straightforward essay question.
Reading: there's a lot. I personally found it challenging to take notes of the readings because:

  1. The content seems very self-explanatory... it's thick descriptions of medical practices and procedures, and the varying perceptions of the parties involved. It's conducted through a cultural lens, so literally viewing the practice of medicine as a cultural practice, because the practice of medicine is within a specific situated cultural context... you can see where I'm going with this. TL;DR: see anything Donna Haraway, or this quick definition of "natureculture" as coined by the fine scholar herself. 
  2. A lot of the topics that were written about (e.g., history of psychiatry as not "real science" or "hard medicine", perception of women's health as "passive",) were things I was already familiar with from Introduction to Gender Studies.  
Rating: 3/10 - wouldn't do again... sure it's reasonably easy to pass through and the reading required to at least pass the exam is fairly straightforward, but the teachers don't present the content in an engaging way.

Tulips in the Botanic Gardens! It's summer time now ~

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