Key Concepts of Cultural Studies

Introduction to Asian Cultural Studies

Note: McPherson (2008) was adapted by the teacher for the purpose of the discussion
What is Cultural Studies?
Different (Hi)stories

 Cultural Studies borrows  Cultural Studies within...

theories and methodologies
from...  African Studies...

 Literary Studies  Asian Studies

 Sociology
 Anthropology
 Philosophy
 Psychoanalysis
 History
 Geography
 Sciences
 ...
Links to Previous Sessions
 What is/are Cultural Studies?
 “culture”
 Diasporas
 “Postcolonial”
 Economics
 “Class”
 Science, Technology and Knowledge Production
 “paradigms” and “paradigm shifts”
 Media and the Public
 “Encoding/Decoding”
 Representations of Justice
 “representations” in movies
 Remember...?
Culture(s) History
Identity formations Religion
Knowledge Economics
Hybridity Ideologies
Race, Class, Gender Global culture(s) industry
Visual Culture(s) Internet
Feminist Theory Media
Colonization/De-Colonization Social criticism
Postcolonialism Cosmopolitanism
Diaspora (Post)Modernity
Minority Literatures Signifying Practices
Popular Culture Discourse
Globalization Encoding/(De)-Coding
Interculturality Power relations
Interdisciplinarity New English Literatures
Geopolitical space(s) Citizenship
Multi-culturalism Transnationality
Outline and Aims
 Disciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity
 The Role of Theory
 American Studies, British Studies, Cultural Studies
 Developments
 Methods
 Key Concepts

You should...
 become familiar with some of the main concepts employed
in the analysis of social and cultural change
 begin to consider different approaches to “textual” analysis
and (historical) contextualization in cultural criticism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIN6TX3Zc90
Remember...
The Production of Knowledge

 knowledge production in historical perspective

 the development of the modern university

 the division of academic knowledge

 how is knowledge organized into disciplines?
But...

“Before we go any further here, has it ever occurred to any of you

that all of this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you’re
not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these
tests, knowledge has to be organized so that it can be taught and
it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized, do you
follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that
organization is an inherent property of the knowledge itself, and
that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it
from the outside. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. Order is simply a
thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of
chaos...”
William Gaddis. JR. London: Jonathan Cape, 1976: 20. Quoted in Joe Moran.
Interdisciplinarity. London and New York: Routledge, 2002: 1.
The Rise of Disciplines
 a particular branch of learning or a particular body of knowledge
 but also the maintenance of order and control

 specialized, valued knowledge

 classical division of knowledge:

 Aristotle: theoretical, practical, and productive subjects

 institutional change:
 from medieval studia generalia to ‘disciplines’ such as medicine, law,
theology
 Enlightenment: project of ordering and classifying knowledge
(encyclopaedias)
 Positivism (Auguste Comte, Hippolyte Taine)
 early 19th century: secularized, state-controlled, research-oriented
university (Prussia)
Disciplines as Tribes?

“Men of the sociological tribe rarely visit the land of

physicists and have little idea what they do over there. If
the sociologists were to step into the building occupied
by the English department, they would encounter the
cold stares if not the slingshots of the hostile natives ...
The disciplines exist as separate estates, with distinctive
subcultures.”
B.R. Clark quoted in Tony Becher. Academic Tribes and
Territories: Intellectual Enquiry and the Cultures of the Disciplines.
Milton Keyes: Open University Press, 1989: 23.
Particular Types of “Discourse”

 language as constructed and constrained by social

patterns or conventions
 modes of thought, cultural practice or institutional
framework that makes sense of and structures the world,
often from the partial perspective of a particular interest
group
 disciplines as “discursive constructions” permit certain
ways of thinking and operating while excluding others
Inter- (Multi-, Trans-, Post-,
Anti-) disciplinarity...

 How is knowledge reorganized into new

configurations and alliances when old ways of
thinking have come to seem stale, irrelevant,
inflexible or exclusionary?

 ...a critical, pedagogical and institutional concept

 ...implies a critical awareness of the relationship between

knowledge and power
What is Theory?
Jonathan Culler. Literary Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

 e.g. literary theory

 a systematic account of the nature of literature and of the
methods for analysing it

 Theory as an established set of propositions...

 offers an explanation that is not obvious
 is not easily confirmed or disproved
 makes people think differently about their objects of study
 shows that what we take for granted as ‘common sense’ is
in fact a historical construction
Two Examples
Michel Foucault, The History of Edward Said, Orientalism
Sexuality (1976-1984) (1978)
 ‘sex’ as a complex idea
produced by a range of
social practices,  a theory of representation
investigations, talks and  Orient vs. Occident
writing, i.e. by ‘discourses’ or  a Western style for
‘discursive practices’
 culturally or socially
dominating the Orient
produced groups of ideas
 texts (signs and codes)  Post-colonial theory
 representations (give
signs meaning)
Theory is...
 ...intimidating?

 interdisciplinary
 analytical and
speculative
 a critique of common
sense
 reflexive
“Area Studies”
 Interdisciplinary inquiries into a specific region, e.g.

 History
 Political science
 Sociology
 Cultural studies
 Languages
 Geography
 Literature(s)
Characteristics and aims of
Cultural Studies...

 study cultural practices and their relation to power

 social and political contexts within which culture
manifests itself
 culture as the location of political criticism and action
 reconcile intuitive and objective forms of knowledge
 moral evaluation of modern society
 aims to understand and change structures of
dominance
Cultural Theory in Practice:
Key Methodologies
 Textual Approaches  Ethnography
 Interpretive Analysis  Qualitative research

 Content Analysis  Lives and Lived

 Discourse Analysis
 Media Analysis
 Historical Approaches
 Memory and History
Experiences
 Experience and Stories
 Reception Studies
 Audience Analysis

 Production and
Consumption
Central Problems...
 Language, Practice and the Material
 Truth, Science and Ideology
 Culture as a Way of Life
 Subjects and Agency
 Identity, Equality and Difference
 Global Culture/Media Culture
 Transforming Capitalism
 Cultural Politics
Approaches to Studying
Popular Culture...
 Film  Race
 Music  Class
 Sports  Gender
 Comix  Sexuality
 Fashion  Censorship
 Television  Imperialism
 Advertising
 Cyberculture http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?
http://www.wsu.edu/~amers v=zQUuHFKP-9s
tu/pop/
Intellectual Strands of
Cultural Studies
 Marxism
 the centrality of class
 Culturalism and Structuralism
 culture is ordinary
 culture as like a language
 Poststructuralism and Postmodernism
 the instability of language
 discursive practices
 Psychoanalysis and Subjectivity
 The Politics of Difference
 Feminism, Race, and Postcolonial Theory
Concepts as a Methodological Basis
of Interdisciplinarity
“Cultural studies has, if nothing else, forced the academy to realize its
collusion with an elitist white-male politics of exclusion and its
subsequent intellectual closure.”
Mieke Bal. Travelling Concepts in the Humanities. A Rough Guide. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2002: 6.

Concepts “travel” from systematic theory into cultural

analysis as tools with which to study cultural objects
on their own terms.
Summary: Concepts of Culture and
Cultural Concepts

 Culture and signifying  Subjectivity and Identity

practices  Ethnicity, Race and Nation
 Sex, Subjectivity and
 Representation
Representation
 Articulation  Television, Texts and
 Power Audiences
 Popular culture
 Cultural Space and Urban
Place
 Texts and Readers  Youth, Style and Resistance
 Cultural Politics and Cultural
Policy
Genealogies of Cultural Studies

 Social Enquiry
 Marxist and Critical Theory
 Asian Studies
 Language Theories
 Cultural Feminism
 Postmodernism
 Audiences
Sex, Subjectivity and
Representation
 gender vs. sex
 cultural assumptions and practices governing the
social construction and social relations of men
and women
 a matter of representation and performance
 feminist cultural politics
 queer theory
Study Questions…
 Explain the revised notion of culture within
cultural studies
Keywords….
 Culture  Race
 Discourse  Class
 Identity  Gender
 Representation  Ethnicity
 Theory  Diaspora

 http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/anglistik/lit-wiss/intro-t
o-literature/2007-02-06/2007-20c-lit-hist.html Consult:
 http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/anglistik/lit-wiss/pre/b
Chris Barker, “Keywords“ and
m1-lit-theory-timeline-2.pdf “Glossary”
Sources
Chris Barker. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice.
London: Sage, 2000.
Chris Barker. Making Sense of Cultural Studies:
Central Problems and Critical Debates. London:
Sage, 2002.
Jonathan Culler. Literary Theory: A Very Short
Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Joe Moran. Interdisciplinarity. London and New York:
Routledge, 2002.