Cultural studies examines how people attempt to assert themselves in the face of power, the determinations that constrain and empower them, and the possibilities available to them. Cultural studies combines a variety of politically en- gaged critical approaches drawn from and including semi- otics, Marxism, feminist theory, ethnography, critical race theory, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, social theory, political theory, history, philosophy, literary the- ory, media theory, film/video studies, communication studies, political economy, translation studies, museum studies … While it attempts to put knowledge in the service of politics, cultural studies also attempts to make politics listen to the authority of knowledge. (1996). Cultural studies does not begin with a general theory of culture but rather views cultural practices as the intersection of many possible effects. It seeks knowledge that will make the contingency of the present visible and open up possibilities that will help to make the world a better, more humane, place. It does not start by defining culture or its effects, or by assembling, in advance, a set of relevant dimensions within which to describe particular practices. In such cases, cultural studies analyzes the interrelations of state, economy, and culture. Cultural studies does demand a kind of self-reflection on its own limitations, but this is not, as in some It believes that its political commitment (and its desire for intervention) demands that it maintain a justifiable claim to authority in the face of the threat of a relativism often linked to contextualist and constructivist projects. . Interrogating Cultural Studies: Theory Politics and Practice.  A companion to cultural studies. All Rights Reserved Bringing it all back home: Essays on cultural studies. Carey argued that a reduction of human reality to the parameters of scientific knowledge was partly to blame for the growing weakness both of a sense of community and of a commitment to democracy in the United States. The question of what cultural studies will (or should) look like is only answerable within the particular context that calls cultural studies into existence. Grossberg, L. (1997). Like a number of other often overlapping bodies of intellectual and academic work that have emerged since World War II (feminism, critical race theory, postcolonial theory, and queer theory, among others), cultural studies is politically driven; it is committed to understanding power—or more accurately, the relationships of culture, power, and context—and to producing knowledge that might help people understand what is going on in the world (or in particular contexts) and the possibilities that exist for changing it. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(1) (2007): 39–49. Similarly, cultural studies seeks not to give priority to particular political stakes and constituencies, nor to take the appropriate goals and forms of struggle for granted; such assumptions might substitute political commitment for intellectual work. The question of better or worse knowledge is, then, no longer a matter of comparing two things (the description and the reality) as if there were some place outside the reality that we could stand in order to compare them. (eds.) Cultural Studies represent the study of the different forces from which the whole of humankind construct their daily lives. One dimension of power (e.g., class) does not necessarily explain another (e.g., gender), nor will changing one necessarily change the other. (eds.) Cultural studies attempts to strategically deploy theory (and empirical research) to gain the knowledge necessary to redescribe the context in ways that will enable the articulation of new or better political strategies. Cultural studies is concerned with describing and intervening in the ways in which texts, discourses, and other cultural practices are produced within, circulate through, and operate in the everyday life of human beings and the institutions of society. The problem of ideology: Marxism without guarantees. By working across the boundaries among these fields, cultural studies addresses new questions and problems of today s world. Hall, S. (1983). Marx, K. (1973). If academic work is commonly characterized as moving from the complex to the simple, from the concrete to the typical, cultural studies insists on describing and theorizing the complexity of the specific contexts. The concept of knowledge raises questions not just of how to assess the claims of, but of distinguishing between competing forms of, knowledge. Its commitment to studying relations and, hence, to an interdisciplinary project means that cultural studies cannot sit comfortably in any discipline. Internationalizing cultural studies. Consequently, the common assumption that cultural studies is, necessarily, a theory of ideology and representation, or of identity and subjectivity, or of the circulation of communication (production-text-consumption), or of hegemony, is mistaken. ), Marx 100 years on. Two of the most important political assumptions of cultural studies are also among its most controversial. Cultural studies is an effort to think contextually about contexts; context defines both the object and the practice of research. Moreover, there are several versions of cultural studies. In a broader sense, it focuses on the means by which society creates meaning and attaches it to everyday objects, ideas and practices. ‘Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory’, Raymond Williams New Left Review, 82 (1973): 3–16. It attempts, temporarily and locally, to place theory in-between in order to enable people to act more strategically in ways that may change their context for the better. to study cultural phenomena in various societies. Science EncyclopediaScience & Philosophy: Cosine to Cyano groupCultural Studies - Definitions, Culture And Context, Formations Of Cultural Studies, The Project Of Cultural Studies, Cultural Studies, Theory, And Power, Copyright © 2020 Web Solutions LLC. In this sense, cultural studies desacralizes theory in order to take it up as a contingent strategic resource. There is no knowledge that is not always marked by the possibilities and the limits of the position and perspective from which it is constructed and offered. Nor can one assume, in advance, how to describe the relation of specific cultural formations to particular organizations of power. This contextualism is expressed in the key notion of articulation, which refers to a theoretical model as well as a methodological practice. (2004). Chen, K-H. Cultural studies often addresses such issues, but that is the result of analytic work on the context rather than an assumption that overwhelms the context. Cultural studies is an intellectually grounded practice for intervening into the "becoming" of contexts and power. It does believe that knowledge is dependent on its context, and hence, that all knowledge is limited and partial. (1992). Without giving in to relativism, cultural studies seeks new and more modest forms of expertise. The third key concept defines context as a material configuration of power. London: Routledge. While some of these traditions emerged as a result of an encounter and conversation with English-language work in cultural studies, others, especially in Asia and Latin America, emerged out of their own traditions of cultural and political analysis in the context of developments following World War II. Malden: Blackwell. The problematic of subjectivity arises primarily from two developments within cultural studies: first, the influence of poststructuralist theory, which argues that discourses produce the positions (subjectivities) from which individuals both experience the world and become speakers of the discourse; second, the organization of political struggles around a series of identities relating to gender, race, ethnicity, etc. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Cultural studies is a recent, innovative, and interdisciplinary project that has had a significant presence in the field of communication since the late 1970s, as well as in other humanities and social sciences. other projects, a requirement that one define one's identity as if it were determining, but rather that one offer a rigorous analysis of institutional conditions and a reflection of one's own contextual existence. Combining the strengths of the social sciences and the humanities, cultural studies draws on methods and theories from literary studies, sociology, communications studies, history, cultural anthropology, and economics. Cultural studies refuses to assume that people are dupes, constantly manipulated by the producers of culture and ignorant of their own subordination. Cultural Studies theorists assume that culture cannot be understood apart from politics, and Cultural Studies practitioners are concerned with questions of power, and often strive to engage in analysis or theory that will contribute to counterhegemonic struggle, and … Back to Communication Theory and Philosophy. Although some commentators locate its origins in Britain in the 1960 –1970s (especially at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies), it actually emerged independently, as an interdisciplinary and international project, in multiple geographical locations.

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