Theorizing the world of work

Theorising the World of Work

Lecturer: Debby Bonnin
Semester: One

This is a core module for which all honours students are required to register. The aim of the module is to provide you with a theoretical framework and concepts that will enable you to understand the current moment of innovation and transformation in the global workplace. A major question framing this module is How do we make sense of the modern (or postmodern) world? In order to understand the current moment it is necessary to be familiar with the key institutions of the modern period – the factory, the bureaucracy, the market and how they are changing in the globalizing economy. Furthermore, how have these shifts impacted on the self and our understanding of identity?

Through the medium of film, the introductory seminar allows you to identify some of the major themes of the modern world. In the remaining seminars the following topics are examined: modernity; the debates around post-modernity; time and space and the implications thereof for the workplace; institutions of the modern world, the factory, bureaucracies, the market; questions of power; and, self and identity.