Cultural Theory and Popular Culture Image credit: Victor GAD 549 Reading Interests of Adults Cultural Theory and Popular Culture Marija Dalbello Rutgers School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies dalbello@scils.rutgers.edu http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~dalbello

What is Cultural Studies? ______________________ study of culture (rather than society) progressive / radical / omnipresent in arts, humanities, social sciences, science & technology

______________________ What is Culture? ______________________ social behavior; material culture; cultural texts and practices? desire? Tylor (1871): Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

______________________ What is Culture? ______________________ Mead (1960s): Culture is a learned behavior of a society or a subgroup. Williams (1970s): Culture includes the organization of production, the structure of the family, the structure of institutions which express or govern social relationships, the characteristic forms through which members of the society communicate. Geertz (1980s): Culture is simply the ensemble of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

What is the Subject of Cultural Studies? ______________________ subject area not clearly defined; all-inclusive notion of culture and study of a range of practices principles, theories and methods are eclectic distinct history of cultural studies

What is the Subject of Cultural Studies? ______________________ principles, theories and methods from social sciences disciplines, the humanities and the arts adapted to the purposes of cultural analysis methodologies diverse: textual analysis, ethnography, psychoanalysis, survey research, etc.

Discipline or Anti-discipline? ______________________ cultural studies impossible to define: collective term for diverse and contentious intellectual endeavors; many theoretical and political positions includes established and radical disciplines, political activistm and modes of inquiry (critical theory) anti-discipline; not institutionalized

Historical background ______________________ Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) est. 1964 Working Papers in Cultural Studies (1972) Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, E.P. Thompson, Stuart Hall working-class background; role of popular culture in class-based society in England

R. Hoggart & R. Williams ______________________ working class intellectuals against canonical élitism (high culture) the culture of common people (working class culture) seen as more authentic than middle- and upper-class culture; derives from experience interest in active appropriation of cultural forms & class struggle in the cultural arena mass culture seen as ‘colonizing’ working class culture; packaged for passive absorption

______________________ R. Hoggart ______________________ founded CCCS The Uses of Literacy (1957) programmatic work; parts of it written as a manifesto critical reading of art needs to reveal the ‘felt quality of life’ of a society; art captures the experience of the everyday as the unique problem: working classes excluded from participation and dissemination of their cultural forms and practices cultural struggle over legitimacy and cultural status

______________________ R. Williams ______________________ Marxist tradition culture is an expression of the coherence of organic communities and resisting determinism in its various forms culture: material, intellectual and spiritual

Characteristics of Cultural Studies ______________________ 1. Examine cultural practices in their relationship to power; how power shapes these practices 2. Culture is studied in the social and political context in which its forms manifest themselves. 3. Culture is both object of study and vehicle for changing political consciousness through this understanding (scholarly & pragmatic). 4. Reconcile division bw tacit / universal knowledge; validation of experience (local knowledge) in addition to generally shared forms of knowledge. 5. Moral evaluation of modern society and means for radical action.

What is Cultural Studies? Study of relations between social relations and meanings (how social divisions are made meaningful) Culture is terrain on which hegemony (ideological representations of class, gender, race) are enforced, and contested by social groups validating their experience Hegemony operates in the realm of representations and consciousness; implies power inequality in different segments of society; naturalizes a class ideology and renders it in the form of common sense; it is exercised through ‘authority’not physical force; it operates through institutions (educational system, media and the family) Cultural studies focus on analysis of cultural forms and their meaning in the context of power relations in society

Culture as Site of Class Struggle ______________________ Gramsci (1891-1937) hegemony: how society is bound together without the use of force under the moral and intellectual leadership of the ruling classes

Hegemony ______________________ hegemony relies on negotiation & consent intellectuals forge consent in the interest of the ruling class competing classes achieve a ‘compromise equilibrium’ culture as key site of struggle of competing interests popular culture is an arena of resistance but also of enforcing hegemony paradoxically, the sphere of culture perceived as non-political

Theories and Theorists in Cultural Studies ______________________ Culture and civilisation (Matthew Arnold; Leavisism) canon Culturalism (Raymond Williams, E.P. Thompson, Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall) authenticity Structuralism (Ferdinand de Saussure,Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes) signs; unconscious foundations; signification Post-Structuralism; Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Edward Said) meaning is process Marxism (Classical; the Frankfurt School, Althusserian; neo-Gramscian; Bakhtin) cultural texts reflect how society is organized Feminism (Janice Radway) constructing identity through consumption Post-modernism (Jameson, Baudrillard) revolt against modernism