Workshop on Cultural Studies 2019

Hello Readers!

On 27th December 2019, a full day workshop on Cultural Studies was organised at the department of English, MK Bhavnagar University. The resource speaker Dr. Kalyani Vallath from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala was invited for detailed explanation of the subject.

Cultural studies is not only the branch of study but also the study of politics, nature, environment, people so on and so forth. Cultural studies contains multiple studies within itself. If one wants to study the culture, one should require a bunch of knowledge of historical sense, traditions, religions, etc. Cultural studies include capitalism, politics, communication, multimedia, advertisement and much more. In order to study this topic, one should be ready to dive deep into the ocean of various cultures. Critics and theorists have given many arguments and opinions about cultural studies. Stuart Hall was the major figure who worked at first about the cultural studies. It seems that in the early 1950s and 60s, the systematic study was established.

* If a layman meets the student of literature and language, one would explain him about cultural studies like this.

Culture means what we do in our daily life. What clothes we wear, how we cook our food, and which festivals we celebrate, what language we speak, how we use the mode of transportation, how we communicate with one another; all those things are defining our culture. It also consists the types of rites and rituals we follow and to which community we belong to. The culture is the mixture of all those things. Many learned people have made this thing a part of study and they have found many interesting things. Nowadays students are selecting this subject as their major and doing their best in the field.

* If one is asked in an interview to teach cultural studies, here is the way one can introduce the subject to the students.

"Students, welcome to the realm of cultural studies. As you all know that even having similar human bodies we still differ from each other in many ways. For example, this class also has it's own culture, because it contains various students coming from different areas and regions. This is the fundamental idea of culture. It doesn't deal with the question who we are, but it surely deals with how we are. If you are accessing internet then you'll be able to find out many blogs and articles related to cultural studies. Here I've shared the link of my blog to your social media group to read something on the subject. Furthermore, this is also culture. Many years back there were very few incidents that people were able to see or meet each other in person, because of lack of transportation, or communication. But here we can see that culture, like time and space is gradually changing and expanding itself. Just as I've shared my work without showing you any physical paper holding in my hand, and still you are able read my blog through internet and smartphones. The interesting thing about culture is it's so plural. If you will just look around yourself, you will find many same things but still different from each other. The people we see around us are so different. Their faces, their skin color, their attires, their apatite, their language, their festivals, their religious practices... and the list will be longer than we imagine. Now let's dive deep into the sea of cultural studies. This is just the beginning, in details we shall see how scholars have furthered this studies."

The whole session was full of examples and interesting talks. I remember the example of food Kalyani mam had given. India is so plural and it is the best place to talk about cultural studies. From North India to South India we have variety of foods and dishes.

The entire workshop was very fruitful and full of references and examples. Thanks to our head of the department, Dr. Dilip Barad for organizing this workshop. Special thanks to Dr. Kalyani Vallath for sparing her precious time for the students.

Thank You!