SILPA SCARIA

 BRITISH CULTURAL STUDIES

INTRODUCTION

“Cultural studies designate a recent and rapidly growing cross-disciplinary enterprise for analyzing the conditions that affect the production, reception and cultural significance of all types of institutions, practices and products” (Abrams 64). In the simple sense it is a major discipline of humanities which regards culture as the central subject and analyzes its development and possibilities over various societies and historical periods. As Toby Miller says in his work A Companion to Cultural Studies, “in place of focusing on canonical works of art, governmental leadership, or quantitative social data, cultural studies devotes time to subcultures, popular media, music, clothing, and sport”. Instead of being a discipline of rigid and firm boundaries and rules, cultural studies possess an inter disciplinary approach and it is also concerned with fields like sociology, political theory, Marxism, post structuralism, post colonialism, anthropology, history, media and communication studies etc. Cultural studies also casts a special focus on issues related to gender, race, class structures, ethnicity etc. by attempting a close analysis of the social and cultural experiences of human beings the discipline of cultural studies also aims to achieve a progressive change in the society, where we live. Now a days we can see diverse and distinct approaches to the very discipline of cultural studies from various parts of the world including Britain, U.S.A, Canada, South Africa, Australia etc.

ORIGINS OF BRITISH CULTURAL STUDIES

From centuries back itself cultural studies was there in Britain. But it took a long period to rigidify the area of C.S as a definite discipline. The beginnings of modern cultural studies in Britain can be traced to critics like Matthew Arnold, T.S Eliot and F.R Leavis. Arnold expressed his notions regarding the very concept of culture in his 1869 essay where he viewed culture as a solution for the emerging anarchy in the society. For the improvement and development from the terrible anarchy Arnold identified culture as a crucial necessity. Through works like Modern Education and the Classics (1934) and Notes towards the Definition of Culture (1939) Eliot also emphasized and celebrated the elitism of culture. F.R Leavis, the exhorter of “Great Tradition” is another recognized pioneer of cultural studies in Britain. He believed in the power of culture to bring moral virtues and ethical to the society and thus to make it improved and uncontaminated. He underlined his views regarding culture in the 1948 work, The Great Tradition.

FROM 1950s….

 The development of the of cultural studies as a discipline in the United Kingdom can be traced to the 1950s and 60s. It  was in this post war period where the power structures of class was almost absent and where there was a flourishing of modernity that cultural studies emerged in Britain.The publication of works like The Uses of Literacy (Richard Hoggard), Culture and society, 1780-1950, The Long Revolution(Raymond Williams), The Making of English Working Class(E.P Thompson) etc became the milestones in the founding of British school of cultural studies. The most vital landmark in the development of B.C.S was the establishment of the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (C.C.C.S) by Richard Hoggard and Stuart Hall at the University of Birmingham, in 1964. Through C.C.C.S, Hoggard and Hall hoped to organize advanced researches and discussions in the realms related to culture and society. They argued for the widening of the very sphere of literature by analyzing various cultures and thus by developing an interdisciplinary approach.

Richard Hoggard, who was one of the co founders of C.C.C.S, is an unforgettable name in tracing the history of the British Cultural Studies. Being born into a working class family and having experiences as an adult education tutor at the University of Hull, his own life experiences contributed for Hoggard for defining his ideas regarding culture and society. His 1958 work, The Uses of Literacy exerted a substantial influence in the development of British cultural studies. Taking his own life experiences as an important raw material, in this work Hoggard made “the demonstration of  interconnections among various aspects of public culture – pubs, working-men’s clubs, magazines and sports, for instance – and the structures of an individual’s private, everyday life – family roles, gender relations, language patterns, the community’s ‘common sense’” (Turner 39). In this work he tried to provide an admirable account of the working class life and also emphasized on its fall. From 1964 to 1968 Hoggard worked as the director of CCCS and after him leaving the center Raymond Williams chaired the office.

            In his personal and family backgrounds Williams shared many similarities with his friend, Hoggard i.e he was also from a working class family and had experiences as an adult education tutor. It was his 1958 work Culture and Society, that marked his space in the field of cultural studies. The book tried to trace out a literary history giving more importance to cultural products and cultural relations. The work was also concerned with the Leavisite tradition and provided an account of the cultural history of Britain. “ Williams insisted on the need to see the cultural process as a whole, so that the textual analysis of media products (for instance) should be conducted in relation to an analysis of the institutions and social structures producing them”.(Turner 46). Other important textual contributions of Williams to the field of cultural studies were Marxism and Literature and (1977), Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974) and The Long Revolution (1961).    

            E.P Thompson was another prominent cultural theorist of Britain, who was also a worthy follower of Hoggard and Williams. Thompson’s notions regarding the cultural studies reflected their strong implications towards the Marxist ideology and theory. The work “The Making of the English Working Class” (1978a) is regarded as Thompson's magnum opus in the field of cultural studies. The basic interest of Thompson was on humanism and he was against the notions of base and superstructure and class dominations in order to defend the power of human agency. He argued for the relevance of the working class people in making the cultural and social histories. Thompson also shared many similarities in his theoretical conceptions, with Raymond Williams.

Another important theoretician marked for his priceless contributions to British cultural studies is Stuart Hall. He was a theorist who was mostly concerned with the medias, especially television, and the culture circulating  through them. His major works include Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order (1978) and The Popular Arts (1964).

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

M.H Abrams, Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Handbook of Literary Terms. New Delhi: Cengage, 2009.

Miller, Toby. A Companion to Cultural Studies. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.

Turner, Graeme. British Cultural Studies An Introduction. Routledge  Publishers, 2005.