cultural studies and its four goals

Name: Bhatt Dhara

Roll No: 02

M.A. SEM II

Assignment topic: Cultural Studies and its Four Goals

Submitted to: Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University,

Bhavnagar.

CULTURAL STUDIES AND ITS FOUR GOALS:-

# INTRODUCTION :- “ CULTURAL STUDIES”

            The word “culture” itself it so difficult to pin down , “cultural studies” is hard to define. As we also the case in chapter 8 with elaine showalter’s “cultural” model of feminine difference.”Cultural studies “is not so much a discrete approach at all, but rather a set of practices. As partick brantinger has pointed out, culturalstudies in not ‘a tightly coherent,unified movement with a fixed agenda.”But a loosely coherent group of tendencies,issues, and question.” 

- Arising from the social turmoil of the 1960s , cultural studies is composed af elements of maxism, poststructuralismand post modernism, femining,gender studies, anthropology, sociology,race and ethinc studies, film theory,urban studies, public policy,popular culture studies and postcolonial studies.

- Those filed that concentrate on social and cultural forces that either creat community or cause division and allienation levi-strauss on anthropology, cultural studies was influenced by structuralism and poststructyralism. Jacquyes derrida’s “deconstruction” of the world i text distiction,like all his deconstructions of hierarchical oppastions, has urged or enabled-cultural critics “to erase the doundraies between high and low culture,classic and popular literary texts,and literature and other cultural discoureses that following derrida, may be seen as manifestations of the same textuality.

             The disceipline of psychology has also entered the filed of cultural studies. For example , jacques lacan’s psychianalytic theiry of the unconscious structured as a language promoted emphasis upon language and power as symbolic systems. From michel foucault came the notion that power is whole complex of forces: it is that which produces what happens.

             Foucalt’s “genealgy” of topics inculdies many things excluded by traditional historians,from architectural blueprints for prison to memoris of “deviants”  psychoanalytic, structuralist. Approches are treated elswhere in ther handbook in the present chapter, we review cultural studies ‘ connections with maxism , the new historicism, multiculturalism,postmodernism,popular culture, and post colonial studies before moving on to our group of six literary works.

# CULTURAL STUDIES ITS FOR GOALS:-

- CULTURAL STUDIES APPROCHES GENERALLY SHARE FOUR GOALS

1. FIRST: cultural studies trancends the confines of a PARTICULAR DISCIPLINE such as literary criticism or history.
2. SECOND: cultura; studies is politically engaged.
3. THIRD: cultural studies denies the separation of “HIGH”AND “LOW” OR elite and popular culture.
4. FORTH: cultural studies analzes not only the cultural work , but also the means of production.

# FIRST DISCUSS A FIRST GOALS.

1. FIRST :- GOAL

“ Cultural studies trancends the confine of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history. “practiced in such journal as critical inquiry , representations, and boundary 2 , cultural studies involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of a text – for example italian opera, a latino telenovela, the architectural styles of prisons, body piercling and drawing conclusion about the change in textual phenomena over time.

# Cultural studies is not necessarily about literature in the traditional sense or even about “art”. In their introduction to cultural studies , editors lawrence grossberg,cary nelson , and paula treichler emphasize that the inhllectual promise of cultural studiess lies in the attempts to “ cut across diverse social and political interests and address many of the struggles within the current scene.”

- Intellectual works are not limited by their own “borders” as single texts, historical problems or disciplines , and the critic’s own personal connections to what is being analyzed amy also be described.

     

- Henty giroux and others write in their dalhousie review  manifesto that cultural studies practitioners are “resisting intellectuals” who see what they do as “an emancipatory project.” Because it erodes the traditional disciplinary divisions in most institutions of higher education.

- SECOND GOAL:-

     

      “ Cultural studies is political engaged” cultural critice see themselves as “ oppositional” not only within their own disciplines but to many of the power structures of society at large. They question inequalities within power stuctures and seek to disover modles for restructuring relationship amany dominant and “minority” or “subaltern” discourses. Because meaning and individual subjectivity are culturally construsted , they can thus be reconstructed. Such a notion , taken to a philosophical extreme , denies the qutonomy of the individual, whether an actual person or a character in literature , a rebuttal of the traditional humanistic “great man” or “great book” theory, and a relocational of aesthetics and cultural from the idal realms of taste and sensibility, into the arena of a whole socity’s everyday life as it is constructed.

- THIRD GOAL:-

      “Cultural studies denies the separtion of high and low or elite and popular culture     might hear someone remark at the symphony or art museum: “i came here to get a little culture”.

      Being a “cultured” person used to mean being acquainted with “highbrow” art and intellectual pursuits. But isn’s culture also to be found with a pair of tickets to a rock concert?

      Cultural critics today work to transfer the term culture today work to transfer the term culture to include mass culture, whether popular , flok , or urban. Following theorists jean baudrillard and andreas huyssen,cultural critics argue that after world war ii the distinctions among high , low and mass culture collapsed , and they cite other theorists such as pierre boundiry and dick hedbige on how “ggod taste” only reflects prevailing social, economic and political power bases. For example , the images of india that were circulated during the colonical rule of the british raj by writes like by rudyard kipling seem innocent , but reval and enterenched impericlist arqument for white superiority and worldwide domination of other races, especially asians. But race along was not the issue for the british raj: money was also a deciding factor. Thus , drawing also upon the ideas of french historian michel de certeau, cultural critics examine.

      #    “The practice of every life”

      stydying litrature as an anthropologist would, as a 

      phenomenon of culture , including  a culture’s economy ,

      rether then determining which are the “best” works

      produced , culture wlitics describe what is produced and

      how carious productions relate to one another. They alm to 

      reveal the political, economic reasons why a certain

      cultural product is move valued at certain times then  

      others.   

           

            [ THE BIRTH OF CAPTAIN]

            Transgressing of boundaries among disciplines high and low can make cultural studies just plain fun. Think , for example , of a possible cultural studies research paper with following title: the birth of captian jack sparrow: an analysis . Robert louis stevenson’s long john silver in treasure island (1881) errol flynn’s and robert morgan’s memorable screen pirates , john cleese’s rendition of long  john silver on juarty python’s flying circus, and of course , keith richards’s eye make up.

- FORTH GOAL :-

 #         “Cultural studies analyzes not only the cultural work , but also the means of production.

#          Maxist critics have long recognized the importance of such paraliterary questions as these : who supports a given artist  ? Who publishes his or her books , and how are these books distributed ? Who buys books ? For that matters , who is literate and who is not ? A well – known analysis of literary production is janice radway’s study of the american romance noval and its readers. Reading the romance women, partriarchy and popular literature , which demonstrates the textual effects of the publishing industry’s decision about books that will minimize its financial risks. Another contribution is the collection reading in america, edited by cathy n. Davidson, which includeds essays on literacy and gender in colonical new england  urban magazine qudiences in eighteenth century new york city ; the impact upon reading such technical innovations as cheaper eyeglasses , electriclights , and trains ; the book of the month club ; and how writers and texts go through fluctuations of popularity and canonicity . These studies help up recognize that literature dose not accur in a space separate from other concerns of our lives.

#          Cultural studies thus joins subjectivity – that is , cultural in relation to individual lives- with engagement , a direct approch to attacking social ills. Thoughcultural studies prectitioners deny “humanism “ or “the humanities” as universal categories, they strive for what they might call “social reason”, which often (closly) resembles the goals and values of humanistic and democratic ideals.