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College Notes (Lectures) Cultural Studies (5181V4CS) Cultural Studies, ISBN: 9781473919457
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Cultural Studies CompilationDocument
Contents
Cultural Studies lecture 1 10-9...............................................................................................................2
Culture: a contested concept.............................................................................................................2
Cultural studies; a little more in depth: Raymond Williams and cultural materialism.......................3
Cultural studies lecture 2 17-9...............................................................................................................5
Cultural Studies lecture 3 24-9...............................................................................................................7
Globalization and the linguistic turn in cultural studies.....................................................................7
Globalization: a new world disorder..................................................................................................7
The Linguistic turn In Cultural Studies...............................................................................................8
The Linguistic Turn in Cultural Studies...............................................................................................9
Cultural studies lecture 4 1-10.............................................................................................................12
Cultural studies lecture 5 8-10.............................................................................................................16
Cultural studies lecture 6 15-10...........................................................................................................20
Cultural studies lecture 7 29-10...........................................................................................................26
Finishing the case study from lecture 6...........................................................................................26
Issues of gender, sex and identity....................................................................................................26
Cultural studies lecture 8 5-11.............................................................................................................31
Cultural studies lecture 9 12-11...........................................................................................................39
Cultural studies lecture 10 19-11.........................................................................................................45
Cultural studies lecture 11 26-11.........................................................................................................50
Cultural studies lecture 12 3-12...........................................................................................................53
1
,Cultural Studies lecture 1 10-9
Case studies are not subject to examination!
Core concepts: make sure you can define and explain these concepts (exams) and use them in an
analysis of culture (writing assignment, exam).
culture, class, ideology
Cultures are never monolithic. In culture there is always tension. Cultures are culture: a and full of
contestation. For example: elite vs mass culture/global vs local culture/mainstream vs sub-culture.
Cultural studies provides you with a theoretical and analytical toolkit that will allow you to
understand and analyse the interaction between culture, politics, and economics from an
international perspective.
Why Culture Matters?
- Because it shapes how we think and how we (re)act (personal space for example)
- Because today global exchanges and communication are reshaping the outlines of our
culture(s)
- Because studying culture allows you to understand globalization, nationalism, customs and
rituals of people, communities and groups
Economics, politics, technology, culture, media-communication are all relevant disciplines to
studying a certain phenomenon.
Culture: a contested concept
What is culture? theorists: Raymond Williams, Matthew Arnold, F.R. Leavis
- Raymond Williams:
o Noun: growing crops
o Expanded: cultivating the mind (Bildung)
o Culture as “lived experience” connected to a specific group (19th century): a more
anthropological definition of culture as a whole and distinctive way of life
o Every culture has its own conception of “culture”; therefore you can’t find a
objective definition for culture that’s globally applicable.
- Matthew Arnold
o Culture is a form of “human civilization” that counters the “anarchy of the raw and
uncultivated masses” (giving superior cultures the task to cultivate the rest of the
world)
o Culture vs the machine (culture needs to be protected against technological
developments)
o Culture is “the best that has been thought and said in the world”
- F.R. Leavis
o Culture is the high point of civilization
o Culture is the concern of an educated minority
Don’t ask what culture is; ask what it does, how it’s (strategically) used, for what purpose, etc.
Culture’s not ‘out there’, it’s created, performed, enacted, transformed
Culture is dynamic, changing, continually contested.
2
,High Culture (bildung): culture is the best of what a society produces.
Low/ordinary Culture: culture is a society’s way of life.
Culturalism and/or anthropological approach to culture:
Cultural studies as a discipline focuses on ‘ordinary’/’popular’ culture: you are able to
understand a culture way better by studying the ordinary culture instead of just the
high/elite culture
Culture is ordinary, belongs to a group of people, is about everyday meanings (values, norms,
material/symbolic goods)
Democratic edge: Cultural studies uses a broad, anthropological definition of culture, and studies
both elite and mass culture. It studies the tensions between these two, and looks at how ordinary
people give meaning to their lives through culture.
Cultural studies; a little more in depth: Raymond Williams and
cultural materialism
Raymond Williams wanted to understand how and why cultural meanings and practices (cultural
studies/anthropological approach) are enacted (play part in) on a terrain that is not of our making
(history), even as we struggle to creatively shape our lives (how do you relate to culture).
A culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to;
the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested.
Culture is always both traditional and creative, both the most ordinary common meanings and the
finest individual meanings (culture is dependent on individuals and vice versa).
We use the word culture in these two senses: to mean a whole way of life - the common meanings;
to mean the arts and learning - the special processes of discovery and creative effort. I insist on both
senses and on the significance of their conjunction (high and low culture are bot important).
Cultural materialism explores how and why cultural meaning is produced and organized. It involves
the exploration of signification in the context of the means and conditions of its production. Cultural
materialism is concerned with the connections between cultural practice and political economy.
Cultural materialism: culture determines what individuals attach value to. For example:
media is a means to produce value (likes).
EXAM! > cultural materialism
Raymond Williams: Cultural materialism explores how and why cultural meaning is produced and
organized. It involves the exploration of signification in the context of the means and conditions of
its production. Cultural materialism is concerned with the connections between cultural practice and
political economy.
- Culture is part of an expressive totality of social relations: You cannot isolate culture from
material conditions, economic possibilities, social position of who creates this culture.
- Culture must be understood through the representations and practices of everyday life in
the context of the material conditions of their production.
- Cultural materialism urges you to study all of culture’s components:
o institutions (what institutions are involved in creating a culture),
o formations (what schools, movements and factions do we discern), modes of
production (what material conditions can we identify in the production of culture),
identifications (how do people identify with a cultural practice), reproduction (how is
3
, this culture re-produced, remembered, archived etc), organization (how is that
archive and remembrance organized).
What is the difference between institutions, formations and reproduction?
Williams distinguishes three levels of culture:
- The lived culture of a particular time and place
- The recorded culture, of every kind, from art to the most everyday facts
- The culture of the selective tradition: the factor connecting lived culture and recorded
culture (making selections about what to record and archive and what not)
Case study for three levels of culture: debate on calling the 17 th/18th century the golden age
4
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