1. Definitions, Important Concepts, Major Figures, and Uses
Cultural Studies
Definitions, Important Concepts, Major Figures, and Uses

2. Definitions of Cultural Studies
“Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary field in which perspectives from different disciplines [Literary Studies, Sociology, Linguistics, Anthropology, History, Geography, Psychology, etc] can be selectively drawn on to examine the relations of culture and power” (Barker 7).

3. Definitions of Cultural Studies
“Cultural Studies is concerned with all those practices, institutions, and systems of classification through which there are inculcated in a population particular values, beliefs, competencies, routines of life, and habitual forms of conduct” (Bennett 28).

4. Definitions of Cultural Studies
“The forms of power that cultural studies explores are diverse and include gender, race, class, colonialism, etc. Cultural studies seeks to explore the connections between these forms of power and to develop ways of thinking about culture and power that can be utilized by agents in the pursuit of change” (Barker 7).

5. Definitions of Cultural Studies
“The prime institutional sites for cultural studies are those in higher education, and as such, cultural studies is like other academic disciplines. Nevertheless, it tries to forge connections outside of the academy with social and political movements, workers in cultural institutions, and cultural management” (Barker 7).

6. Cultural Studies in Plain English
Combines theories from numerous academic disciplines
Examines power relationships within a culture or society – which are usually created through language, identities, representations, and perceptions
Looks at ways groups or populations are marginalized
Goal is to identify these power relationships in order to enact change
Moves beyond the world of academia – mostly focused on Pop Culture
Sees every cultural artifact as a text

7. Key Concepts Culture Language
“Practices, representations, languages, and customs of any specific society…forms of common sense which have taken root in and helped shape popular life” (Hall 439). Concerned with shared social meanings – how we make sense of the world.
Cultural meanings are generated and perpetuated through signs – most often language. Language is not neutral and unbiased, rather, it constructs and reflects meanings and knowledge. Naming things is a form of immense power.

8. Key Concepts Representations Materialism
Representations, including language, are produced, enacted, used, and understood in specific social contexts – they are never objective or unbiased representations. Every text is made up of various representations.
C.S. is often concerned with representations produced for material purposes and gains. Many texts (i.e. films, ads, TV, etc.) are produced with specific, sometimes intentional, meanings designed for profit.

9. Key Concepts Power Popular Culture
Power pervades every level of social relationships. It is both the glue that holds societies together, and more specifically used to subordinate sets of people. C.S. is most concerned with subordinated groups: class, gender, race, nationality, age groups, etc.
Power is not just enacted, it is also consented. The way this happens most is through pop culture. Pop culture is usually “read’ uncritically, so power relationships are consented without close examination. True power occurs when ideas are perceived as occurring naturally.

10. Subjectivity and Identity
Key Concepts
Texts and Readers
Subjectivity and Identity
All cultural products are texts that can be “read” like books. Meaning is both created at the time of production and at the time of consumption. Therefore, the same text may produce different meanings for different readers.
The moment of consumption shapes and reflects how we are formed as people, or subjects. Identities are created ideas that are produced, reinforced, and internalized. There is nothing essential about gender, race, age, etc.

11. Critical Lenses Using Cultural Studies

12. Critical Lenses Gender Studies Feminist Lens
Concerned with identifying gender archetypes: common ‘roles’ each gender plays.
Examines power behind these archetypes/narratives.
Identifies how these roles are created and reinforced.
Takes as a foundation that women have mostly been a subjugated group throughout history.
Examines how patriarchy is reinforced.

13. Critical Lenses Marxist Lens Race Studies Lens
Focuses on how socioeconomic class and power are reflected in text.
Examines how these power structures reflect and reinforce the socioeconomics of a context.
Identifies created narratives around racial identities.
Examines the power dynamics built into racial narratives.

14. Psychological/Psychoanalytic
Critical Lenses
Psychological/Psychoanalytic
Historical Lens
Takes as foundation that a text is a psychological reflection of its creator or its context.
Applies psychological theories, diagnoses, and understandings to texts.
Examines characters based on psychology/ psychanalysis.
Questions: who is telling history, and to what end?
Examines how our historical narratives create/reinforce power.

15. LGBTQ/Queer Studies Lens
Critical Lenses
Postcolonial Lens
LGBTQ/Queer Studies Lens
Understands identities based on the colonizer and the colonized.
Examines how the culture of the colonizer is used to subjugate the colonized.
Examines how marginalized cultures are appropriated or commodified.
Examines narratives/ archetypes surrounding sexual orientation.
Often points to lack of representation, or problematic representations.

16. Important Figures
And their contributions

17. Jacques Derrida: Instability of Language
Linguist who argued that language has no inherent meaning – words are related to each other, not an independent, objective world. Therefore, all kinds of meanings may be attached to any word.

18. Michel Foucault: Discursive Practices
Subjects are the product and reflection of history and discourse. Disciplines such as history, science, medicine, and crime (which are biased) have created all of our possible understandings of subjects. Discourse continually reinforces these ideas.

19. Sigmund Freud: Id, Ego, Superego, and Unconscious
Freudian concepts have been applied to C.S. to show how the self is constructed socially, rather than innately. The processes of identification with others is how we get ideas about ourselves.

20. Frantz Fanon: Colonialism and Racial Identity
Fanon, among others, has explored the ways in which racial identities are constructed. Believed the practice of colonialism and racial discrimination stripped subjugated groups of their identities – forcing them to act Western or white, while denying them access to Western or white privilege. Also concerned with the fetishization/objectification of people of color.

21. Uses of Cultural Studies/Critical Lenses
Examining how and why identities are constructed
Examining impact of power relations in societies
Reading texts for meanings
Examining “common sense” or “natural” features of cultures
Creating active readers and listeners in society
Combatting preconceived notions about identity groups
Seeing how ideas are adopted and perpetuated within a society
Examining disciplines that create and distribute meanings