Ioana Feraru

Professor Dr. Eduard Vlad

Cultural Studies, American Studies 1st year
22 January 2024

1.Definitions of culture and cultural studies: object, method, history; text, ideology, hegemony

 Cultural studies vs. Culture studies

Cultural studies- critical, political, important institution, evolution/improvement. ( Source )

"The term culture, as used in the phrase ‘cultural studies,’ is neither aesthetic nor humanist in
emphasis, but political. Culture is not conceived of as the aesthetic ideals of form and beauty found in
great art, or in more humanist terms as the voice of the ‘human spirit’ that transcends boundaries of time
and nation to speak to a hypothetical universal man." -Vlad (2018):214-215

Culture studies-important texts, important authors, religion etc. ( Source )

"Culture is a complicated and contested word because the concept does not represent an entity in an
independent object world. Rather it is best thought of as a mobile signifier that enables distinct and
divergent ways of talking about human activity for a variety of purposes. That is, the concept of culture is
a tool that is of more or less usefulness to us as a life form and its usage and meanings continue to change
as thinkers have hoped to ‘do’ different things with it." -Barker (2004):44

 Hegemony

"The process of making, maintaining and reproducing this authoritative set of meanings, ideologies
and practices has been called hegemony.

For Gramsci, from whom cultural studies appropriated the term, hegemony implies a situation where a
‘historical bloc’ of ruling class factions exercises social authority and leadership over the subordinate
classes through a combination of force and, more importantly, consent. […]

Within Gramscian analysis, a hegemonic bloc never consists of a single socioeconomic category but is
formed through a series of alliances in which one group takes on a position of leadership. […]

Hegemony is not a static entity but is constituted by a series of changing discourses and practices that
are intrinsically bound up with social power. Since hegemony has to be constantly re-made and rewon, it
opens up the possibility of a challenge to it; that is, the making of a counterhegemonic bloc of subordinate
groups and classes. "-Barker (2004):84
 "From the early 1970s, culture came to be regarded as a form of “hegemony” – a word associated with
Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist of the 1920s and 1930s. “Hegemony” is a term to describe relations
of domination which are not visible as such. It involves not coercion but consent on the part of the
dominated (or “subaltern”). Gramsci himself elaborated the concept to explain why Mussolini’s fascism
was so popular even though fascism curtailed the liberty of most Italians. For him, hegemonic forces
constantly alter their content as social and cultural conditions change: they are improvised and negotiable,
so that counter-hegemonic strategies must also be constantly revised. In the same spirit, if somewhat less
subtly, culture could also be seen as what Michel Foucault was beginning to think of as a form of
“governmentality,” that is, a means to produce conforming or “docile” citizens, most of all through the
education system." -During (1993):4

 Historicism- is the idea of attributing significance to elements of space and time, such as
historical period, geographical place, and local culture, in order to contextualize theories, narratives
and other interpretative instruments. (Source)

 The scientific method ( Source )

 Critique vs. Criticism

Criticism is personal, destructive, vague, inexpert, ignorant, and selfish.

Critique is impersonal, constructive, specific, expert, informed and selfless.

( Source )

 Critical thinking (solving problems)- the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in
order to form a judgement.

" Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing,
applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by,
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its
exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity,
accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose,
problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to
conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of
reference. Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is
incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical
thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and
philosophical thinking. " (Source)

I use my critical "lenses" not only for academic purposes, but even for fiction or poetry. I think is
important to see art for what it is and how it makes you feel, but what makes a person a strong reader is
the ability to appreciate patterns, artistry, language, the ability to make connections and comparisons with
other works you have read before, to start discussions about it and to be able to make strong arguments
while you are doing so.

 James Bond and the Queen (power, ideology, historical context, national identity)
Video

The "James bond and the Queen" video is a sketch for the 2012 London Olympics, starring Queen
Elizabeth II and Daniel Craig. The intended purpose of the video was to promote the Olympic Games,
which were to be hosted in London that year and the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. In the 6 min video,
Bond was shown escorting Queen Elizabeth from Buckingham Palace before getting in a helicopter, after
this parachuting into the Olympic Stadium. I think they did a good marketing job combining the two
things that British people love: James Bond films and The Queen.

" Hence the centrality of cultural politics to cultural studies, since questions of power and politics go
hand in hand; indeed, they constitute and define each other. […] The construction of representation is
necessarily a matter of power since any representation involves the selection and organization of signs
and meanings. " -Barker (2004):161

"[…] ideology is grasped as ideas, meanings and practices which, while they purport to be universal
truths, are maps of meaning that support the power of particular social classes. […] Ideology is
understood to be both lived experience and a body of systematic ideas whose role is to organize and bind
together a bloc of diverse social elements, to act as social cement, in the formation of hegemonic and
counterhegemonic blocs. Though ideology can take the form of a coherent set of ideas it more often
appears as the fragmented meanings of common sense inherent in a variety of representations." -Barker
(2004):97

"A national identity is a form of imaginative identification with the nation-state as expressed through
symbols and discourses. Thus, nations are not only political formations but also systems of cultural
representation whereby national identity is continually re-produced through discursive action. […]
Representations of national culture are snapshots of the symbols and practices that have been
foregrounded at specific historical conjunctures for particular purposes by distinct groups of people. […]

Nations are marked by deep internal divisions and differences so that a unified national identity has to
be constructed through the narrative of the nation by which stories, images, symbols and rituals represent
‘shared’ meanings of nationhood. Thus national identity involves identification with representations of
shared experiences and history as told through stories, literature, popular culture and the media." -Barker
(2004):131-132

2.Longer and shorter histories of critical cultural discourse

 Critical theory

"In a more specialized sense and in a more specific place, the US, the critical theory as Critical Theory
that influenced the American New Left was less associated with the ‘more German’ section of the
Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer) than with the ‘more Americanized’ Frankfurt School of Marcuse.
[…] Another iconic figure of the countercultural age, Angela Davis, assesses ‘Marcuse’s legacies’ of that
time from the vantage point of the third millenium in the Preface to the 3 rd volume of the collected papers
of the ‘American Frankfurter.’ She nostalgically sees Marcuse as a symbolic figure of a radical time, a
time which is now remembered as utopia. […] different receptions of the Frankfurt School messages by
two distinct audiences: the tumultuous countercultural youths of the 1960s, to whom Marcuse appealed
more, and the more sedate ones of the new millennium, for whom Adorno and Horkheimer are more
relevant. " -Vlad (2018):164+

"[…] Herbert Marcuse who, in his late sixties and early seventies, would become the guru of the
flower power countercultural generation (in the young and restless America, which was itself, although
the century was in its late sixties and early seventies, showing signs of cultural revigoration)." -Vlad
(2018): 150

The Frankfurt school

"The Frankfurt School perspective of critical investigation (open-ended and self-critical) is based upon
Freudian, Marxist and Hegelian premises of idealist philosophy. The school's sociologic works derived
from syntheses of the thematically pertinent works of Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
and Karl Marx, of Sigmund Freud and Max Weber, and of Georg Simmel and Georg Lukács." (Source)

"The Frankfurt School, in its original form, and as a school of Marxism or sociology, is dead. Over the
past two decades the development of Marxist thought in the social sciences, and notably in anthropology,
economics and sociology, has taken a course which brings it closer to the central concerns of Marx’s own
theory: the analysis of modes of production, structural contradictions and historical transformations, class
structure and conflict, political power and the role of the state. In the same period, and to some extent
because Marxism has now established itself as one of the major paradigms in sociology, a substantial part
of sociological theory and research has come to be directed upon similar issues, while the preoccupation
with culture which characterized the work of Adorno and Horkheimer has diminished." -Bottomore
(2002): 74

 Cultural studies, literary studies, American Studies

A. Cultural studies- critical, political, important institution, evolution/improvement.

"Cultural studies-the domain of cultural studies can be understood as an interdisciplinary or

post-disciplinary field of inquiry that explores the production and inculcation of culture or maps
of meaning. However, ‘cultural studies’ has no referent to which we can point; […] Cultural
studies can be also be grasped as a discursive formation; that is, a group of ideas, images and
practices, that provide ways of talking about, and conduct associated with, a particular topic,
social activity or institutional site." -Barker (2004):42

B. Literary studies- is the study of written works of the imagination, of which

poetry, drama and narrative fiction constitute today the most familiar types or genres. Most
 students and teachers of literature, however, see it as a more complex matter. It might be
more accurate to describe it as a set of methods for examining the diversity of experience
through unusual uses of language, through a language that we recognize as different from
everyday language and that thereby aspires to produce a reflection of and on the world not
available to us otherwise. As such, literary works are also primary documents for
investigating national histories, world events, the individual psyche, race, class, gender,
science, economics, religion, the natural world, leisure and the other arts. Because literary
studies engage with countless other disciplines, it is among the most interdisciplinary of any
field of study. (Source)

"[…] the paradigm of literary study could be understood as structured around five interlocking
terms:

1 a traditionally empiricist epistemology;

2 a specific pedagogic practice, the ‘modernist’ reading;

3 a field for study discriminating the canon from popular culture;

4 an object of study, the canonical text;

5 the assumption that the canonical text is unified." -Easthope (1991): 164

C. American studies- the examination of American literature, history, society, and

culture. ( Source )

 The world economic forum

"The World Economic Forum (WEF), based in Cologny, Geneva Canton, Switzerland, is an
international NGO, founded on 24 January 1971 by Klaus Schwab. The foundation, which is mostly
funded by its 1,000 member companies – typically global enterprises with more than five billion US-
Dollar in turnover – as well as public subsidies, views its own mission as "improving the state of the
world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional,
and industry agendas".

The WEF is mostly known for its annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, a mountain resort in
Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 3,000 paying
members and selected participants – among which are business leaders, political leaders, economists,
celebrities and journalists – for up to five days to discuss global issues across 500 sessions.

Beside meetings, the organization provides a platform for leaders from selected stakeholder groups
from around the world – business, government and civil society – to collaborate on multiple projects and
initiatives. It also produces a series of reports and engages its members in sector-specific initiatives."- (
Source )
  "You will own nothing and you will be happy"

Ada Euken first said it. I already quoted a source that describes how the WEF is defined above so I'll
just go ahead and talk about this "famous" phrase. As we also discussed during our course, I think this
phrase refers to the fact that we as individuals became really attached to our possessions and that it would
be a good idea to own less so we're not going to be conditioned all the time, instead of going to the
library, which can be far from your home, you can download the book online and gain some extra time
for reading; this list can go on and on. This could help with the massive deforestation nowadays. Of
course, some people prefer to detached themselves from screens as much as possible, which is indeed
understandable, the screen can be a time sink and it can become damaging but when used properly it can
provide us so much information, so quick.

3. Cultural studies and liberal humanism

 Rationalism vs. empiricism

" There is a distinct difference between rationalism and empiricism. In fact, they are very plainly the
direct opposite of each other. Rationalism is the belief in innate ideas, reason, and deduction.
Empiricism is the belief in sense perception, induction, and that there are no innate ideas. With
rationalism, believing in innate ideas means to have ideas before we are born. -for example, through
reincarnation. Plato best explains this through his theory of the forms, which is the place where everyone
goes and attains knowledge before, they are taken back to the “visible world”. Innate ideas can explain
why some people are just naturally better at some things than other people are- even if they have had the
same experiences."- ( Source )

" Kant’s Critical Philosophy went on to become a historical reference point for later forms of liberal
humanist discourse, in addition to those of most other later critical cultural approaches. Kant undertook to
radicalize the various, often diverging, critical trends of the Enlightenment into an all-encompassing
critique of pure reason, in the eponymous work that came to be his first major achievement.

In The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant examines the basis and limitations of knowledge,
acknowledging the accomplishments of both empiricist (Hume and Locke) and rationalist philosophers
(Leibniz) before him. He believed that if reason were to be vindicated against skeptical attacks such as
those launched by Hume, there was no alternative but to look to reason itself to provide the response. "-
Vlad (2018):62

 Liberal humanism

Liberal humanism: universal laws and principles.

 Attitude: Literary studies move between author centered approaches to text centered approaches to
reader centered and then context centered approaches.

" Liberal humanism can be defined as a philosophical and literary movement in which man and his
capabilities are the central concern. It can also be defined as a system of historically changing views that
recognizes the value of the human being as an individual and his right to liberty and happiness. "- (
Source )

" Classical Liberal philosophy is founded on the work of John Locke and J.S.Mill and involves
consideration of the principles of individual freedom of action and an equality of rights. Here the purpose
of government is to protect individual liberty while not itself transgressing that freedom. Thus, Liberalism
addresses what it sees as the inherent tension between the spheres of liberty and authority, between
individual freedom of thought and collective opinion. Thus, Liberalism is a political and cultural
philosophy concerned with the balancing act between individual freedom and the reduction of suffering
through community action." Barker (2004):109

"A general term for the philosophical view that places unified human beings at the centre of any
understanding of the universe. More specifically, humanism posits the existence of an ‘inner core’ as the
source of meaning and action as theorized by Descartes in his famous phrase ‘I think therefore I am’.
Thus, for humanism we are understood to be unique and whole persons endowed with the capacities of
reason, consciousness and agency. Here the rational, conscious individual subject is placed at the heart of
Western philosophy and culture. In putting the human being at the centre of meaning and action,
humanism displaces God and religion from their traditional pre-modern location at the heart of the
universe. As such, humanism partakes of the Enlightenment philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries but cannot be simply identified with it since humanism is arguably the ascendant attitude of
contemporary common sense."-Barker (2004):88

" In addition to systematic skepticism, another strategy that liberal humanism employed was moral
critique. It featured consistent endeavors to set up a foundation for the individual’s moral judgment
concerning prevailing institutions and practices. In Ancient Greece, thinkers like Aristotle were inclined
to see an individual’s morality deriving from political practice. Later, during the Middle Ages, the
theological doctrine would also subordinate individual moral judgment to its requirements. […]

The concepts and attending values of freedom, liberty, human rights, which occupy center stage in the
contemporary discourse of cultural studies, were also an important component of the critical discourse of
liberal humanism. There were two distinct, but often interwoven, contexts in which the problematics of
these concepts and values were dealt with: the naturalist/ essentialist view and the contractarian view.

In the naturalist/ essentialist view, the nature, the essence of the human beings, consists in these
individuals being able to exert agency, to make decisions based on their own will, free from external
constraints, thus expressing themselves through the exercise of liberty. Human rights are therefore natural
and essential. The essentialist or naturalist view will have to establish which human actions can be
constrained by whom under which legitimating circumstances.

In the contractarian theory, which was the prevailing one in the heyday of the Enlightenment, rights
originate in a social contract by means of which each party promises to respect the rights of others if the
others reciprocate. Since liberty and rights are not natural or essential in this view, it follows that if one
party violates the rights of the other party/ parties, even if the violator might be an authoritarian ruler, the
previous agreement can be declared null and void. "- Vlad (2018):54-55

 The inquisition

"The Inquisition was a powerful office set up within the Catholic Church to root out and punish heresy
throughout Europe and the Americas. Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years,
the Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of Jews and Muslims. Its
worst manifestation was in Spain, where the Spanish Inquisition was a dominant force for more than 200
years, resulting in some 32,000 executions.

The Inquisition has its origins in the early organized persecution of non-Catholic Christian religions in
Europe. In 1184 Pope Lucius III sent bishops to southern France to track down heretics called Catharists.
These efforts continued into the 14th Century.

During the same period, the church also pursued the Waldensians in Germany and Northern Italy. In
1231, Pope Gregory charged the Dominican and Franciscan Orders to take over the job of tracking down
heretics.

Inquisitors would arrive in a town and announce their presence, giving citizens a chance to admit to
heresy. Those who confessed received a punishment ranging from a pilgrimage to a whipping.

Those accused of heresy were forced to testify. If the heretic did not confess, torture and execution
were inescapable. Heretics weren’t allowed to face accusers, received no counsel, and were often victims
of false accusations.

There were countless abuses of power. Count Raymond VII of Toulouse was known for burning
heretics at the stake even though they had confessed. His successor, Count Alphonese, confiscated the
lands of the accused to increase his riches.

In 1307, Inquisitors were involved in the mass arrest and tortures of 15,000 Knights Templar in
France, resulting in dozens of executions. Joan of Arc, burned at the stake in 1431, is the most famous
victim of this wing of the Inquisition."- ( Source )

4. CS and hermeneutics

Hermeneutics-meaning and context (theory of interpretation)

 Hermeneutics

"A philosophical endeavour concerned with textual meaning and theories that explain interpretation
as a process. […] A central issue for hermeneutics has been the generation of meaning and the degree to
which this can be said to reside in texts and/or is produced by readers. […] The influence of hermeneutics
within cultural studies has largely been through a reader-reception theory that challenges the idea that
there is one textual meaning associated with authorial intent. It also contests the notion that textual
meanings are able to police meanings created by readers/audiences but instead stresses the interactive
relationship between the text and the audience."- Barker (2004):85

"Hermeneutics first focused on the interpretation of the holy texts in theological seminaries at the end
of the 18th century. The main idea was that, in order to reconstruct the texts of the more remote past, one
had to reconstruct the cultural context by means of other texts tracing discernible traditions, a procedure
that would be taken advantage of by different strands of Cultural Studies in the 20th century. […] Found
in a dialectical relationship with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, hermeneutics adopted more
scientific ways of corroborating internal and external evidence in the texts under study, such contextual
elements as archaeological and historical knowledge, as well as the comparison and contrast of sources to
reach the most valid interpretation. This showed a significant change in the attitude toward the holy texts,
which were to be approached with lucid, critical eyes with a view to reaching their original meaning. The
modern critical cultural discourse of hermeneutics did not acquire its modern configuration until the
Romantic Age."- Vlad (2018):76-77

 Postmodernism

"The contemporary emergence of the concept of postmodernism is not simply an academic fashion but
also, and more significantly, it marks a response to substantive changes in the organization and enactment
of our social worlds. However, a degree of perplexity surrounds the notion of postmodernism because it
has become confused with the concept of postmodernity as well as having acquired a number of different
uses of its own. We may understand postmodernism to be a notion that refers us to questions of culture
and knowledge while the idea of postmodernity relates to historical patterns of social organization.

The concept of postmodernism may be comprehended thus: A cultural style marked by intertextuality,
irony, pastiche, genre blurring and bricolage. […]

Postmodern culture is marked by a self-conscious intertextuality, that is, citation of one text within
another. This involves explicit allusion to particular cultural products and oblique references to other
genre conventions and styles. […]

That is, postmodernism is marked by an ironic knowingness that explores the limitations and
conditions of its own knowing. Further, in the context of a consumer culture, we act as self-conscious
bricoleurs selecting and arranging elements of material commodities and meaningful signs into a personal
style. Thus, the postmodern can be read as the democratization of culture and of new individual and
political possibilities. […]

Postmodernism rejects the Enlightenment philosophy of universal reason and progress and
understands truth as a construction of language valid only within the language-game of its formation. "-
Barker (2004):156-158

 Semiotics- "is the study (or ‘science’) of signs and signification that has developed from
the pioneering work of Saussure. Semiotics is commonly understood to be a form of structuralism
because it seeks to explain the generation of meaning by reference to a system of structured
differences in language. "- Barker (2004):181
  Poststructuralism

"Poststructuralism is a stream of thought identified with a number of different thinkers (amongst who
are Derrida, Foucault and Kristeva), few of whom have actually adopted the term. […] Poststructuralism
deconstructs the very notion of the stable structures of language that structuralism assumes. Meaning, it is
argued, cannot be confined to single words, sentences or particular texts but is the outcome of
relationships between texts, that is, intertextuality. […] Poststructuralism is anti-humanist in its de-
centring of the unified, coherent human subject as the origin of stable meanings. […] poststructuralism
rejects the idea of a stable structure of binary pairs; rather, meaning is always deferred, in process and
intertextual. Poststructuralism abandons the search for origins, stable meaning, universal truth and the
‘direction’ of history."-Barker (2004):160-161

 Textual analysis: meaning and interpretation-excerpt from Irving's "Rip Van Winkle"
( Text )

Worth mentioning phrases:

 " A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing;
and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. "- This phrase plays into the stereotype and
misconception that many authors approach when it comes to women, portraying them as stressful
creatures, even evil sometime.
 " In a word Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing
family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible. "-People often say that your home
should mirror your own self. Maybe the reason why everything went backwards in Rip's farm is that
he is also a very troubled character, with no certain target or goal.
 " He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste
provoked another; and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses were
overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep. "-
This could be a symbol for lust, Rip being very familiar with drinking.

Analysis

 The comical suggestion that cakes immortalize Knickerbocker reveals that he isn’t well-
respected, but also suggests that other forms of immortalization – like getting your face on a penny –
are also sort of silly and not all that permanent either.
 The introduction of the ghostly figures transforms the story from a supposedly dry
historical account to one containing fantastical and mystical elements.
 Rip’s disorientation in the scene where he wakes up after 20 years begins to build a sense
of strangeness and dread that contrasts with the bright and pretty natural surroundings. Rip’s worries
(about his wife) are quickly made to seem inconsequential in the face of these mysterious
circumstances. While Rip is worrying about the same things he has always worried about (evading his
wife’s anger), the clues in his environment tell us—the readers—that something has changed even if
Rip doesn’t quite yet realize it.
  The tension continues to climb as Rip slowly begins to register the dramatic changes that
have taken place since his time on the mountain. His wife is gone, his dog is old and does not
recognize him, and his house and property look as though they’ve been abandoned. The clash
between expectations of sameness and evidence of dramatic change is coming to a head.
 Rip’s son is identical to his father, and the introduction of a third Rip Van Winkle
suggests a kind of comforting indefinite continuity.
 The issue of Rip’s perfect accuracy is raised one last time, emphasizing the integral role
mythology and folklore has played in this village's history (and perhaps suggesting the need for a
distinctly American folk history).

5.From Marx's "orthodox", economic determinism to cultural, Western Marxism

"What will be seen in very categorical terms as Marx’s economic determinism, his claim that culture is
fundamentally conditioned by the economic base, should be considered within the framework in which it
was formulated. It will become a major bone of contention for those theorists walking in his footsteps,
some of them straying from the so-called orthodox Marxist views."- Vlad (2018):87

"This economic toughening of the Marxist doctrine, quite unexpectedly, became extremely widespread
outside Western Europe, with Soviet Russia and Communist China developing the kind of materialist
cultural and political discourse that would become bankrupt by the end of the 20th century (with China’s
current hybrid model being an interesting development). […] Marx’s economic determinism thesis did
not work in Russia. According to Marx, Russia first had to move from feudalism to capitalism, the mujiks
had to turn into the proletariat, the proletariat and capitalism had to grow fast, then the proletariat had to
become politicized in order to start the revolution, moving Russia into Communism. That needed a lot of
time."- Vlad (2018):123-125

" Western Marxism is the kind of materialist cultural discourse that has influenced the development of
Cultural Studies through its disregard of Marx’s thesis of economic determinism. Western Marxism, in
addition to the ‘quarrel with Marx’ on the issue of economic determinism, adopted, adapted and reworked
important Marxist ideas. These are related to culture and civilization, ideology, alienation, commodity
fetishism (turned into reification) as well as a militant attitude to knowledge and society (what will be
called ‘critical’ in relation to ‘traditional’ theory). In short, Western Marxism stresses the importance of
the study of the superstructure, especially of culture, not only for a better understanding of society, but
also with a view to promoting social and political change for the better. "- Vlad (2018):128-129

6.Freud-from the dynamics of the individual psyche to the psychoanalytic cultural theory

"Freud gradually developed the socio-cultural dimension of his psychoanalytic project starting from
the versions of his psychodynamics of the individual (the conscious vs the unconscious, then the ego, the
id, and the superego). In Freud’s opinion, very much like in the case of individuals, culture is not to be
assessed, described, understood by rational, liberal humanist coordinates, the ‘collective unconscious’
being particularly powerful. [...]

Freud’s general theory of interpretation stipulated that explanation and cultural critique should not
move from society toward the individual, but the other way round, unlike what Marx and his followers
claimed. Like Marx, though, Freud would ground his theory in the material, not in the ideal realm,
starting from the determining coordinates imposed by biology and physiology. Freud went on to see
psychoanalysis as a science able to deal not only with the individual’s major existential problems, a form
of therapy that he had assumed initially, but also capable of providing a suitable critical cultural discourse
to address the far-ranging socio-cultural problems that Marx and Marxism had decided to engage with.
[…]

Psychoanalysis will gradually move from individual pathological cases to more comprehensive realms
of study, considering that meaning stems from desires and anxieties, not from texts or the minds of
authors and interpreters. Psychoanalysis assumes a position between the mental and the material realms,
between the psychological and the biological levels of existence, between desire, instincts and meaning,
between individual treatment and cultural commentary. […]

As the theory went beyond the mere treatment of individual forms of hysteria into these realms of
cultural human interaction, psychoanalysis developed into the cultural theory that would also influence
other major cultural approaches that would become part of contemporary cultural studies and adjoining
forms of cultural investigation." - Vlad (2018): 88-95

7.The first two waves of postwar Cultural Studies: Hoggart, Williams, E. Thompson and the
New Left

" Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and Edward Thompson (1963) are seen as the initiators of the
early stage of left culturalism, continuing a longer culture vs. civilization rather than culture and
civilization tradition. British Culturalism stresses the commonality of culture and the ability of working
class people to devise and share meaningful cultural practices. There will be a continued preoccupation
with lived experience as culture, culture defined as an everyday social interaction, explored in the
frameworks offered by its material coordinates of production and consumption. This is a deliberately
biased, subjective approach, stressing the class foundations of culture, aiming to do justice and give voice
to subordinate social classes in newer, more democratic redefinitions. […]

The first director of the Birmingham center (or rather centre, since it was so British) was Richard
Hoggart, Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, whose important titles show
that he takes letters, words, and literature very seriously. […] British working class culture is seen as an
authentic, rich, organically connected network of community practices and rituals involving family, kin,
and neighbors (the British pub, for example), specific language forms. The distinction is therefore clear-
cut for Hoggart: mass culture (imported American movies, pop music played on jukeboxes, comics,
popular romances) is bad, inauthentic, while popular culture is good (authentic). […] Hoggart was
planning to go beyond the limited ground covered in this book celebrating ‘everyday, common culture,’
examining how new language worlds are continually replacing older ones, especially through the mass-
media. These media, for the better and for the worse, offer a new sense of belonging, of togetherness, of
sharing everyday experience and its accompanying language in a predominantly mass-media culture. […]

The kind of culture Williams is interested in is… common culture, not in the sense of a culture
accepted by common people and maintained by the elites. The relevance of the concept of culture
emerged in response to the Industrial Revolution, to its distinct political and social changes, which had
brought to the fore, in addition to the bourgeoisie, the working classes and their ways of life. […]
Williams will soon very explicitly proclaim that culture is ordinary, that it is more than a repertoire of
intellectual and artistic work, essentially being a whole way of life. […] In the study of literature, and
other cultural products, Williams came up with the concept of structure of feeling, which is to be seen as
the distinct feature of a cultural period, the special result of the interaction of all the cultural elements in
the general pattern of the time. This very complex and elusive phrase seem to refer to the defining cultural
feature of an age, something to be shared by most members of a knowable community transcending class
distinctions. " - Vlad (2018): 195-205

E. P. Thompson and the New Left

"The young people, who marched from Aldermaston, and who are beginning, in many ways, to
associate themselves with the socialist movement, are enthusiastic enough. But their enthusiasm is not for
the Party, or the Movement, or the established Political Leaders. They do not mean to give their
enthusiasm cheaply away to any routine machine. They expect the politicians to do their best to trick or
betray them. At meetings they listen attentively, watching for insincerities, more ready with ironic
applause than with cheers of acclaim. They prefer the amateur organisation and the amateurish platforms
of the Nuclear Disarmament Campaign to the method and manner of the left-wing professional. They are
acutely sensitive to the least falsity or histrionic gesture, the ‘party-political’ debating-point, the tortuous
evasions of ‘expediency’. They judge with the critical eyes of the first generation of the Nuclear Age." -
E. P. Thompson (May 1959)

Works cited:

Barker, Chris. The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies. London: Sage Publications, 2004. [004,
digital]

Bottomore, Tom. The Frankfurt School and Its Critics. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2002. [004]

During, Simon, ed. The Cultural Studies Reader (1993). Second edition. London and New York:
Routledge, 2001. [004]

Easthope, Anthony. Literary into Cultural Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. [005]

Vlad, Eduard. Cultural Studies: Archaeologies, Genealogies, Discontents. Bucuresti: Editura

Universitara, 2018. [AC, BU, 004]