DIT Digital

The first year that we ran the module was 2013-14. 

We described the module to students thus;

This module covers contemporary British history since the 1970s with a particular emphasis on popular, media and youth cultures. In particular, it uses the emergence of punk both as a specific historic moment in British popular culture (1976-77), but also as a paradigm that contains within it a range of themes, concepts and strategies that account for many of the major developments in Britain’s social and cultural evolution since the 1970s.

Consequently, the module explores themes such as the challenge to the post-war consensus in Britain, and the disruption of settled political boundaries; responses to economic and institutional crisis, especially unemployment and deindustrialisation; the development of youth orientated DIY culture, challenging established orders through symbolic clashes and appropriation, fascinated with the tensions around the market and authenticity (the sell out and the prank); new definitions of cultural radicalism and identity politics; the cyclical eruption of moral panics and delinquency, particularly around recreational drug use and new media technologies; the role of retro and revivalism in contemporary British culture; the evolution of the night-time economy and the regeneration of regional centres; fame, celebrity and banality in the media; obscenity, profanity and censorship

The engagement of the students in the first year of the module made it clear to us that we could be doing much more than using Punk as a hook into contemporary history, we could use the module to think about what it means to teach using punk as a process and ethos.

A postcard to Edmonton

The first step in the project opening itself out beyond the seminar room was inspired by Rylan Kafara's History of Punk course in Edmonton, Canada. He very kindly let us send him a postcard

Sell your soul

We also asked the students to think critically and creatively about what it meant to do a university module on Punk. How would it translate into transferable skills? and might that help us think about punk and subcultures more generally in their commercial setting.