Hello Readers!
In the
previous blog of cultural studies, unit 1 thinking activity we have seen four goals of cultural studies and how power can operate and control the culture. Here we will explore some more points and look at five types of cultural studies.
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reference blog.
Five Types of Cultural Studies
1. British Cultural Materialism
- Cultural studies was known as cultural materialism in Britain. It begins with Marxist ideology and power hegemony in society. In the late nineteenth century, Matthew Arnold redefined the "givens" or say coals of culture. There are two trajectories through which British cultural materialism can better understood and they are
presence of the past and the other is
future. The past contains the monarchy system and landowners which can be seen as leisure class. That class was ruling over working class such as land workers and labor class. In short, there were feudal hierarchies in society. Working class was dependent upon landowners or higher class. Future represents a kind of looking at Utopian society. F. L. Lucas, Louise Althusser and Marx were those who looked at the cultural future of Britain. Many British thinkers were inspired from Karl Marx. Raymond Williams states that
"there are no masses, there are only ways of seeing [other] people as masses."
2. New Historicism
Stephen Greenblatt might have coined the term "New Historicism." Michael Warner phrases the motto of new historicism as "The text is historical and the history is textual". Frederick Jameson insisted that "Always Historicize!" A thought of returning to history became prevalent in the 1980s. New historicism studied letters, diaries, films, paintings and medical treaties in order to oppose the text which is recorded in history. Theorists also tried to bring out new meanings and reading of various events and cultures. In the zeitgeist of today's culture, one comes to know that how a small part of history is getting retold in modern adaptations like films and TV shows. Ram Leela, Padmavat, Bajirao Manstani and ohter historical films are examples.
Contribution of Michel Foucault in New Historicism
- How can new historicism answer the question raised against Laputa episode in Gulliver's Travels?
Susan Bruce suggests a new reading of the word Laputa. It is clear that why Swift has used the word for an Island. Laputa's literal meaning is whore, a lady with scandalous affairs. As the work of Bruce suggests, that Swift studied the
3. American Multiculturalism
As it is known that America is a continent which has become a habitat of several civilizations since long. People of different geographic parts came to America with their own religions, food, clothing, rites and rituals, and many other cultural practices. This plurality of various culture makes the word "Multiculturalsim". As far as the concept of oneness or diversity is concerned, America has diversity but doesn't have oneness in culture. After a great and restless struggle, African identities advanced and found their voice in society. Majorly the issue of "race" was the part of this struggle. Majorly the literary multi-culture consists of 1. African-American writers, 2. Latino writers and 3. Asian American writers.
4. Postmodernism and Popular Culture
Like poststructuralism, postmodernism critiques the aesthetics. But rather than only critiquing, postmodernism denies the traditional thought. Postmodernism questions the thoughts of European philosophy, and it argues that it is the "others" who pays the price for empowering dominant society. Postmodernism had begun in the mid-1980s and it emerged in art, architecture, music, film, literature, sociology, communications, fashion, and other fields.
- Exemplify the
four types of analysis of popular culture. Apply it on popular artifacts.
* Production Analysis
* Textual Analysis - checks how meaning is generated through texts of popular culture.
* Audience Analysis
Who purchases what? Which book is sold largely in which class of people? How the popularity of any book relies on a particular group? Which group of society consumes which kind of products? These are the questions which can be answered thorough analyzing the audience in popular culture. For example, while watching a film at the cinema theater, on the appearance of actress or on a fighting scene, hooting and shouting is done by people. Through this, one can analyze the shallow artistic sense of the audience. Similarly, the
* Historical Analysis
- Difference between modernism and postmodernism. Give examples if possible
There are two major theorist
Jean-Francois Lyotard and
Jean Baudrillard who explained postmodernism at length. Lyotard
5. Postcolonial Studies
The word postcolonial refers to the time after the decline of colonialism. After the separation of the European empire from the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the third world countries were struggling to rebuild themselves. Many authors and theorists focused on both, colonialism and the changes created in a postcolonial culture. Edward Said's Orientalism was a touchstone to study colonialism. Many theorists have worked on postcolonial studies. Frantz Fanon was a Caribbean Marxist and he wrote
The Wretched of the Earth (1961), an important work to study postcolonial theory. Gyatri Chakravorty Spivak coined the term subalterns for the colonially marginalized people. The authors of postcolonial literature like Salman Rushdie, Chinua Achebe are read alongside European responses to colonialism by writers such as George Orwell and Albert Camus.
References:
(1)
Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Thank You !
