98827 - CULTURAL ECONOMICS: VALUE IN CULTURAL POLICY AND MANAGEMENT

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course ‘CULTURAL ECONOMICS: Value in Cultural Policy and Management, students will be able to apply theoretical concepts from cultural economics and policy to the analysis of current (cultural) policies and of their impact on how arts and cultural organizations try to legitimate their role in society. In particular, based on a thorough confrontation with current taxonomies of the values of art and culture, they will be able to identify the main rationales, including the currently dominant, economic one, behind current (cultural) policies. Finally, by applying state-of-the-art advocacy and accountability frameworks for art and culture to real cases, they will be able to elaborate on the (in)adequacy of the instrumental rationality and of the language of numbers for the (e)valuation of arts and culture.

Course contents

Introduction to Cultural Economics

• The importance of economics for cultural policy and management
• The origins of a discipline
• Defining Cultural Economics

Economics and Cultural Policy

• The importance of cultural policy for arts managers
• Defining Cultural Policy
• The politics and the economics of cultural policy

Cultural Policies: One Main Common Topic, Different Visions

• The values of art for society
• The contexts and the rationales of Cultural Policy
• The characteristics of New Public Management

Debating the Values of Art

• Intrinsic and instrumental benefits of the arts
• The current dispute on the values of art

Capturing the Values of Art through Research on Artistic Encounters

• The unaccomplished endeavor of shifting the study of the values of art from the instrumental to the intrinsic benefits
• Definition and types of audience and visitors research

Communicating the Values of Art

• The nature of the information about the values of art
• Instruments to communicate values

Readings/Bibliography

Main:

T.b.a.

Additional:

Crossick, G., Kaszynska, P., 2016. Understanding the value of arts and culture. The AHRC Cultural Value Project. Swindon (Wiltshire): Arts & Humanities Research Council.

All the literature cited in the slides of the lecture and listed on the final slides of each lecture.

Teaching methods

Lectures, group work, (group) presentations, interactive discussions.

Assessment methods

The presentations and discussions of the group assignments at each session are assessed formatively (feedback); the final group portfolios including a consistent and complete summary of the partial group assignments are assessed summatively (grade).

Teaching tools

In case the course will be offered in hybrid form, online lectures on Teams will be the main component of the online part of the course. Students are required to connect to the platform using their own laptops. There is no specific hardware requirement.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Chiaravalloti