Option Module: Working in the Cultural and Creative Industries

What is it like to work in the creative industries? What does work in these industries look and feel like for their workers? Through studying contemporary empirical examples as well as theoretical and historical perspectives on work in the media and creative industries, in this module you will consider how creativity been imagined, understood and organised as a particular kind of work.

You will engage with significant historical and contemporary theoretical perspectives on the nature of work itself, the place of work in our understanding of human nature and culture, the relations between work and artistic forms of production and the broader organisational and policy infrastructures which have come to support and underpin work in the arts and media industries. Sometimes understood as a model for work in the broader economy, and sometimes constructed as distinct and different from other forms of work, creative work has become a significant terrain for academic, industry and policy-oriented research. This module will equip you with the means to navigate this terrain - and give you better understanding and preparation for the experience of working in these sectors.

There are dedicated sessions on craft, cultural intermediaries, media work and precarious work, emotional and aesthetic labour, cultural labour markets and inequality, the hopeful politics of cultural work, and the future of cultural work.

Illustrative Bibliography

Banks, M., Gill, R. and Taylor, S. (eds) (2013) Theorizing Cultural Work: Labour, Continuity and Change in the Cultural and Creative Industries, London: Routledge.

Becker, H. (2008) Artworlds, 25th Anniversary Edition, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Crawford, M. (2009) The Case for Working With Your Hands, London: Penguin.

Deuze, M. (2007) Media Work, Cambridge: Polity.

Hesmondhalgh, D. and Baker, S. (2011) Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries, London: Routledge.

Luckman, S. (2015) Craft and the Creative Economy, London: Palgrave.

Maguire, J. and Matthews. J. (eds.) (2014) The Cultural Intermediaries Reader, London: Sage.

McRobbie, A. (2016) Be Creative, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Morris, W. (1895) Useful work vs Useless Toil, London: Journeymen Press.

Perlin, R. (2012) Intern nation. London: Verso.

Ross, A. (2009) No Collar: Life and Labour in Precarious Times, London, New York University Press

Srnicek, N. and Williams, A. (2015) Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work, London: Verso

Stahl, M. (2013) Unfree Masters: Recording Artists and the Politics of Work, Durham: Duke University Press

Sholz, T. (ed) (2013) Digital Labor: The internet as playground and factory, London: Routledge

Thompson, J.B (2010) Merchants of Culture, Cambridge: Polity