British Cultural Studies

Gopika. S

BRITISH CULTURAL STUDIES

 

Cultural Studies was always an unstable formation. It is a complicated task to trace its history and to define the field in a strict frame work. The status of a discipline was given to cultural studies in a later stage in the development of the field. The central object of the study in cultural studies is ‘culture’. It considers culture as something substantive and material and not merely a category or an idea.

The notion of culture itself in cultural studies is different from the traditional conception of the term given by philosophers like Plato and critics like Arnold. The field of study is not centered on the idea that culture is ‘what is best’. It focused on the multiple ways in with the idea of culture was deciphered among humans and also considered the different meanings ascribed to the term over the time.

One could trace back the advent of the idea of culture among the English in the periods we generally understood as that of the Industrial Revolution. Much before this, we can identify early forms of the discipline during the French Revolution when a group of philosophers and poets identified culture as an embodiment of mass spirit. The idea of people becoming the primary site of cultural expression informed their notion.

Cultural studies are never a discipline with strict disciplinary boundaries. One of the characteristic features of the field of study is its fluidity with regard to the disciplinary boundaries. Cultural Studies is widely understood as an interdisciplinary or cross disciplinary field of study. In the initial stages of its development the field had an anti disciplinary tendency. It restricted the attempts to convert it as a discipline. Cultural Studies as a discipline was informed by such fields like anthropology, literary studies, politics, Sociology, philosophy, linguistics, media studies, psychoanalysis and the like. The interesting part is that, Cultural studies are never separate from these disciplines. It has many converging lines with these other disciplines and it functions more like a frame that facilitates study of ‘cross – over’s’.

As mentioned earlier Cultural Studies had an anti-disciplinary nature in its earlier periods. Richard Johnson (1986/77) has opined that rather than attempting to define the field Cultural Studies could be seen as‘alchemy for producing useful knowledge about the broad domain of human culture’. Cultural Studies has no specific methodology, this fluidity itself is an important characteristic of the field. Stuart Hall in 1990, mentioned that, ‘Cultural studies is not one thing, it has never been one thing’, which again points to the anti-disciplinary tendencies that the field exhibited. Even when we talk about Cultural Studies with reference to a specific national tradition, it remains diverse and divergent, incorporating several tendencies and positions.

Different traditions in Cultural Studies like British and American have developed from the efforts to understand society, especially the modern and post war society and its culture. It focused on such movements like modernization, industrialization, rise of mass communication, and the like. It was focused on ‘knowable communities’ as Raymond Williams terms it.

Cultural Studies can be seen as a link between theory and material culture. It addressed the diverse manifestations of historical conditions in different cultures. Tony Bennett Defines Cultural Studies as:

A term of convenience for a fairly dispersed array of theoretical and political positions- which, however widely divergent they might be in other respects, share a commitment to examining cultural practices from the point of view of their intrication with and within relation of power.   

One of the major misconceptions about Cultural Studies is that it deals with popular culture. The field of study should be more correctly is understood as an attempt at legitimizing the move of established disciplines like literary studies, history and anthropology. Cultural Studies primarily aimed at the academic study of popular interest areas. Against the established disciplines trend it included mass media, sports and dance in the academic discussion areas.

 

The history of British Cultural Studies can be traced back to the post war years. The discipline developed with the impetus it received from the trends prevailed in the times like the revival of capitalist industrial production, creation of welfare state and the western nation’s unity against the Russian Communism. In the social science domains focus shifted from the Elite to the working class in post war years. Working class trends and interests became the focus of cultural studies. Study Circles and observer groups of working class communities also influenced the development of the field of study. The part played by the Journal ‘Scrutiny’ published by F R Leavis and his wife is remarkable in the period. The forms of representations of culture became vital between the wars and this was addressed by the magazine to an extent. The widening of opportunities for education in Britain also contributed in the development of the discipline. In his work ‘The Future of Cultural Studies’ (1989), Raymond Williams traced the roots of Cultural Studies to the early adult education movement. In a way most of the pioneering figures in British Cultural Studies is related to the movement.

A brief history of British Cultural Studies can be traced through certain key moments in the course of its development. It can be said that, British Cultural Studies begins with Raymond Williams efforts in ‘Culture and Society” (1958) and ‘The Long Revolution’ (1961). He tried to theorize the relation between culture and society in these works.

The next key moment in the development of the field of study in Britain was the two parts project by Richard Haggard in his work, ‘The Uses of Literacy” (1958). The work in two parts analyzed the working class institutions like sporting events and its language, beliefs, values etc. and also the influence of spread of American popular culture through Britain and especially on the working class culture.

E. P. Thomson is another key figure in the field. His attempts in ‘The Making of the English Working Class’ (1963) proved to be another vital moment in the history o British Cultural Studies. The work aimed at rescuing the working class from the ‘enormous condescension of posterity’.

Apart from the works of these major figures the contributions by Stuart Hall is equally important in defining the fields of study in Britain. His contributions especially in the field of mass culture and its manifestations opened up new areas to be explored under the discipline.

The key institutional moment in the development of British Cultural studies was the founding of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham in 1964. The center was started with Richard Hoggard as its director. Later Hall succeeded him o the post in 1969. Center has many projects that contributed to the advancement of Cultural Studies which included:

A journal ‘Working Papers in Cultural Studies’, a series of co-authored books, especially influenced ones like- ‘Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post- War Britain’ (1976) and ‘Policing the Crisis: Mugging the State, and Law and Order’(1978).

Apart from this center British Cultural studies is also associated with various Open University courses and journals like New Formations, Cultural Studies, and Screen.

The center was crucial in the further development of the discipline in Britain. The centers work culminated in many large bodies of works through negotiations with theories and other disciplines like Marxism, Semiotics, and various Sociological and Ethnographic traditions. These larger fields of study include those like Subculture Theory, media studies build on a theory of encoding and decoding and the study on issues of racism, hegemony and Thatcherism on a Gramscian line.

These developments moved the discipline from its earlier humanistic assumptions. The discipline encounters interventions from other fields like that of Feminism’s which motivated the field to rethink its ideas of Subjectivity, politics, gender and desire. The Women’s Studies group of 1978 is an instance of this development.

British Cultural Studies as we have seen originated through negotiations with Marxism; it redefined the relation of society with culture. This can be seen in the works of Raymond Williams. Later with Stuart Hall the field takes a structural turn. It discussed the influence of mass culture and communication trends in the field. The recent influence of studies of race post colonialism and similar issues (AIDS epidemic for instance) shifted the concern of cultural studies to complex issues like articulation, and experience of identity.

All through the period of its development it continues to produce important studies to politics and culture.

**************************

 

Bibliography

Lawrence Grossberg, Cary elson, Paula Treicher, ed. Cultural Studies. NewYork: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Inc, 1992.

Oswell, David. Culture and Society: An Introduction to Cultural Studies. New Delhi: SAGE Publication Indian Pvt.Ltd, 2006.

Turner, Graeme. British Cultural Studies An Introduction. Routledge Publishers, n.d.