Course:
M.A (English)
Topic: Cultural Studies and its Four Goals
Semester:
02
Roll
No. : 07
Paper
No.: 08(c)
Paper
Name: The Cultural Studies
Submitted
to: Dr. Dilip Barad,
Smt.
S.B.Gardi
Department
of English,
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Cultural Studies and its Four
Goals
“CULTURAL STUDIES”
The
word “culture” itself it so difficult to pin down, “cultural studies” is hard
to define. As we also the case in chapter 8 with Elaine Showalter’s “cultural”
model of feminine difference.”Cultural studies “is not so much a discrete
approach at all, but rather a set of practices. As Patrick Brantinger has
pointed out, cultural studies in not ‘a tightly coherent, unified movement with
a fixed agenda”. But a loosely coherent group of tendencies, issues, and
question.” Before knowing about Cultural Studies, we should know what
culture is. Culture is a anthropology, encompassing the range of human
phenomena that cannot be directly attributed to genetic inheritance. The term
culture in American anthropology had two meanings-
1 The
evolved to classify and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively
and creatively.
2 The
distinct ways that people live, differently, classified and represent their
experiences and acted creatively.
Culture
is central to the way we view, experience and engage with all aspects of our
lives and the world around us. Even our definitions are shaped by the
historical, political, social and cultural contexts in which we live. Culture
is the mode of generating meanings and ideas. This mode of negotiation under
which meanings are generated by power relations. Culture is a social phenomenon
which tends to regularate the mindset and behavior of people which is set on
ancient rules and regularities and experiences. Culture is the identity of
particular society and it is the mirror of the society. Culture in a simple way
can be said as a particular way of life. Tradition, customs, rules and
regulations, norms, artifacts (signs), religions, communities, material things,
journey of 'Man' from caves to present day civilization are also culture.
Opposite
of nature is culture. Nature is outside and the moment Man enters, it becomes
culture. Whatever which is not nature is culture. All the activities that are
done between people on the piece of land and with the other people, culture is
the entire range of activities that all the people of the society do. Culture
deals with identity. For example, Mahatma Gandhi is the icon of India.
Nature is
something which is outside the control of human beings and culture is the
introduction of what humans do and think. Culture is the great help out of our
present difficulties; Culture beings the pursuit of our total perfection by
means of getting to know, on all the matters which has been thought and said in
the world: and through his knowledge, turning of stream of fresh and free thoughts
upon our stock notions and habits, which we follow but mechanically. When the
things are done by elite group, it is called Culture and when the same things
are done by minority group, it s called sub-culture. Elite culture controls
meanings because it controls the terms of the debate. Non-elite views on life
and art are rejected as 'Tasteless', 'useless' or 'even stupid' by the elite.
Culture is one of the two or three terms to define. It is an umbrella term.
Literature is one of its disciplines. It cannot be understood by one
discipline. We are multi-disciplinary. Every discipline studies culture but in
a different way.
Four Goals of Cultural
Studies-
1) Cultural studies transcends the confines of a
particular discipline such as literary criticism or history. Cultural
studies involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of a text- for example,
Italian Opera, a Latinotelenovela, the architectural styles of prisons, body
piercing- and drawing conclusions about the changes in textual phenomena over
time. Cultural studies is not necessarily about literature in the traditional
sense or even about "art". Intellectual works are not limited by
their own "borders" as single texts, historical problems or even
disciplines, and the critic's own personal connections to what is being
analysed may also be described. Henry Giroux and others write in their
Dalhousie Review manifesto that cultural studies practitioner are
"resisting intellectuals", who see what they do as "an
emancipatory project" because it erodes the traditional disciplinary
divisions in most institutions of higher education. But this kind of criticism,
like feminism, is an engaged rather than a detached activity.
2) Cultural
studies is politically engaged. Cultural critics see themselves as
"oppositional", not only within their own disciplines but to
many of the power structures of the society at large. They question
inequalities within power structures and seek to discover models for
restructuring relationships among dominant and "minority" or
"subaltern" discourses. Because meaning and individual subjectivity
are culturally constructed, thus they can be reconstructed. Such a notion,
taken to a philosophical extreme, denies the autonomy of the individual,
whether an actual person or a character in literature, a rebuttal of the
traditional humanistic "Great Man" or "Great Book" theory,
and a relocation of aesthetics and culture from the ideal realms of test and
sensibility into the arena of a whole society's everyday life as it is constructed.
3) Cultural
studies denies the separation of "high" and "low" or elite
or popular culture. Being a "cultured" person means acquainted
with "highbrow" art and intellectual pursuits. Cultural critics work
to transfer the term to include mass structure, whether popular, folk, or
urban. Following theorists Jean Baudrillard and Andreas Huygens, cultural
critics argue that after World War 2 the distinctions among, high, low and
mass culture collapsed, and they cite other theorists such as
Pierre Bordeaux or Dick Hebdige on how "good taste"
often only reflects prevailing social, economic, and political power bases.
Drawing upon the ideas of French historian Michel de Certeau, cultural critics
examine "the practice of everyday life", studying literature as an
anthropologist would, as a phenomenon of culture, including a culture's
economy. Rather than determining which are the "best" works produced,
cultural critics describe what is produced and how various productions relate
to one another. They aim to reveal the political, economic reasons why a
certain cultural product is more valued at certain times than
others. "The Birth of Captain Jack Sparrow: An
Analysis" and " Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the
Black Pearl (2003)" are some famous works and movies.
4) Cultural
studies analyses not only the cultural work, but also means of
production. Marxist critics have long recognized the importance
of such para literary questions as these: who supports a given
artist? A well known analysis of literary production is Janice Radway's
Study of the American romance novel and its readers, Reading the Romance:
Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature, which demonstrates the textual
effects of the publishing industry's decisions about books that will minimize
its financial risks. Reading in America, edited by Cathy N. Davidson,
which includes essay on literacy and gender in Colonial New England; urban
magazine audiences in Eighteenth Century New York city; the impact upon reading
of technical innovations as cheaper eyeglasses, electric lights, and trains;
the Book-of -the-Month Club; and how writers and texts go through fluctuations
of popularity and canonicity. These studies help us recognise that literature
does not occur in a space separate from other concerns of our lives.
Cultural
studies thus joins subjectivity that is, culture in relation to individual
lives- with engagement, a direct approach to attacking social ills. Though
cultural studies practitioners deny "humanism" or "the humanities"
as universal categories, they strive for what they might call "social
reason" which often (closely) resembles the goals and values of humanistic
and democratic ideals.
Year 2050, the United States will be what demographers call a
"majority-minority" population; that is, the present numerical
majority of "white", "Caucasian", and "Anglo"-
Americans will be the minority, particularly with the dramatically increasing
numbers of Latina /o residents, mostly Mexican Americans. As Gerald Graff and James
Phelan observe, "It is a common prediction that the culture of the next
century will put a premium on people's ability to deal productively with
conflict and cultural difference. Learning by controversy is sound training for
citizenship in that future".
The next class where Western culture is portrayed as hopelessly
compromised by racism, sexism and homophobia: professors can acknowledge
these differences and encourage students to construct a conversation for
themselves as "the most exciting part of (their) education".
Click here to evaluate my Assignment-
No comments:
Post a Comment