Summary Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, 5th edition (Barker &Jane) + Required extra Readings for CS
College aantekeningen (Lectures) Cultural Studies (5181V4CS) Cultural Studies, ISBN: 9781473919457
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Cultural Studies
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10-09-2019 Lecture 1:
Be able to define and explain key concepts for the exam and be able to use them in an
analysis of culture. Understand and analyse the interaction between
culture/politics/economics
Culture is never monolithic, it is dynamic. Culture is not ‘’out there’’ it’s created, performed
and transformed. There is interaction ongoing between:
● elite- and mass culture
● global trends and local culture
● mainstream and subcultures
culture shapes how we think and act; personal space
key concepts: culture, class, ideology
Culture:
Culture = cultivating the land → cultivating the mind (Bildung)
Question how culture is used and for what purpose, not what it is. There is no clear and
definite answer to what it is or what its definition is.
High culture “culture with a capital c’’: best that’s produced
- Fine arts
- Literature
- Ballet etc
Ordinary Culture: society’s way of life
- Everyday lived experience
- Traditions and habits of a people
Matthew Arnold (1822-88) high culture. Culture counters the anarchy of the raw and
uncultivated masses. Link to imperialism and technological revolution/industrialisation.
British empire had the task of cultivating the uneducated masses in the Orient → Said.
Culture is the best that has been thought and said in the world.
Arnold wasn’t alone, Leavis: “culture is the concern of an educated minority”. Still operative
today. High culture is a minimal part of culture, ordinary culture produces far more. Louvre
vs. banlieues in Paris.
Culturalism is the focus on ordinary culture; the ordinariness of culture and the everyday
lived character of culture. Humanities traditionally focus on high culture whilst cultural studies
focuses on both elite and mass culture, this gives a democratic edge.
Raymond Williams (1921-88) on cultural materialism. He wanted to understand how and why
cultural meanings and practices are enacted on a terrain that is not of our making. Culture is
both traditional and creative; ordinary common and finest individual meanings. The word is
used in two senses:
- A whole way of life
- To mean the arts and learning; process of discovery and creative effort
Cultural materialism is concerned with the connection between cultural practice and political
economy.
,Williams is part of the dominant approach to culture within Cultural Studies.
Arnold would consider ballet culture.
vs.
Williams would argue that everything we do or say is culture.
, 17-09-2019 Lecture 2:
Raymond Williams came up with cultural materialism, concerned with connections between
cultural practice and political/economy. When looking at culture, always look at it in relation
too… (economics, politics etc)
Williams distinguishes three levels of culture
- The lived culture of a particular time/place; structure of feeling
- The recorded culture ranging from art to the most everyday facts, pictures/film
- The culture of selective tradition: the factor connecting lived culture and recorded
culture, originated a long time ago but is still practiced today
Everything that is not recorded/archived tends to disappear. All three interact; Gouden Eeuw
issue (E.g. Anne Frank diaries, to her lived, diary recorded, nowadays selective)
You cannot isolate culture, we use culture to understand social relations like the economic
possibilities
* At least one question on cultural materialism on the exam *
Cultural materialism links to all of culture’s components (*look at slides*)
- Institutions; museum
- Formations; school
- Modes of production; technology
- Identifications;
- Reproduction; how is culture re-produced, remembered, archived
- Organisation;
Marx is crucial to cultural studies, because he was invested in finding out the relations
between cultural and other aspects of society; most importantly the economy. Cultural
studies has been influenced but has also criticised marx.
Influenced by:
- Ideology
- Hegemony
- Historical materialism
Historical materialism: a theory that attempts to relate the production and reproduction of
culture. Culture is an expression of your social existence.
Relations of production? The economic structure of society, who is in charge of the economy.
The one who controls the economy controls the entire capitalist society; this is the real
foundation of the legal and political superstructure.
Culture, politics, art
Base: economy
The ideas of the ruling class are the dominant ideas in society, the dominant material force is
also the dominant intellectual force. Second guess your own opinions as being your own
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