Cultural
Studies
Cultural
Studies as the name suggests is an interdisciplinary field. It has lots of
convergence and deviations, one converging into the other and there by leading
to another. This has helped in understanding phenomena’s and the relationships
which were not at all available through the existing disciplines already
familiar. It’s a convergence. It contains elements like principles, directions
or categories of theory. It can be motivational too.
The
history of Cultural Studies is marked by continual shift in methodologies. It
has developed through different stages to that of as seen today. The history of
Cultural Studies begins from the Birmingham Centre, Where the concept of
Cultural Studies originates and which contributed to the genre British Cultural
Studies. According to Foucault Cultural Studies is a discursive formation.
Cultural Studies and Marxism too had a Linkage.
There
is a close association between Marxism and Cultural Studies and lasted for a
period of around twenty years. Though it was born in the aftermath of Student
Radicalism of 1968, Marxist Cultural studies died with the collapse of soviet
empire. Marxist Cultural Studies entered the centre of British intellectual
life and proved as an unusually successful export. Later the members of the
British Communist Party and its international affiliates Move away from the
Critique of the established Marxist tradition of cultural theory embodied in
those writings. This laid the foundation of Cultural Studies. The forefathers
of cultural criticism had critical positions towards Marxism.
British Cultural
Studies
The
condition of Britain after the World War times was precise. So the English
Culture was subjected to keen Scrutiny in the attempt to understand the changes
and their Cultural economic and political effects. This marked the beginning in
the BritishCultural Studies. The Term Cultural Studies started as a tradition
in Britain by Hoggart, Thompson and Williams in 1950s.Stuart Hall is also a
main figure of the British Cultural Studies. It was carried by centre for
contemporary cultural studies in Birmingham. Birmingham is the centre where the
concept of cultural studies originated. Britain was the then centre for
cultural studies. According to them Culture refers to the each groups or
communities way of life and outlook to the world.
The
study of social construction of desires and the cultural background of
normative rules are the key concerns of cultural Studies. The integrating of different
line of inquiry and orientation contributes to the specificity of Cultural
Studies. We can see Cultural studies as a cross roads, the arrival. Through the
application of concepts from various disciplines at a shared view is useful to
study distinctions and meanings. The meanings of Cultural studies are explored
in various angles and studied the mediation of social reality in different
ways.
In
thematic terms cultural studies is a broad field of study that takes in a wide
range of different theoretical traditions. The very concept of culture alone is
understood in different ways within the same field as said earlier it’s a
convergence one leading to another. The only common feature that cultural
studies share in common is the position that reality and social life are always
and essentially mediated through meanings. So the early mode of Cultural
studies has developed into the field of British Cultural studies with Raymond
Williams, Stuart Hall, Hoggart and Thompson as its major founders.
HOGGART AND THOMPSON
Richard Hoggart was not a Marxist but was born to a
working class family in Leeds in the last year of the Great War. He served in
the British Army during the Second World War. He worked as an adult education
tutor at the University of Hull, which helped him to define the culture and the
place of education within it. One of his major work is “The uses of literacy” (1958).He
had many opportunities to convert to the cultural standards but he didn’t.
Hoggart’s relation to Marxism was one of dismissal. According to Hoggart the
working class life in the prewar period is a complex one because the public and
private values and practices are intervened. The regressive aspects of working
class living like domestic and neighborhood violence are acknowledged by
Hoggart. The cultural fall made the earlier version of working class lost its
traditious culture and that fall of 1930’s differ's him from Levis and Eliot.
One another major book of Hoggart is ‘The uses of Literacy’.
Edward
Thompson the third founding father of British Cultural Studies was by far the
most explicitly Marxist. He was a long term member of the Communist party and
an active participant in its History Group, but later withdrawed. He was the
founder editor of the New Reasoner
and then to New Left Review. The New
Reasoner was both a Marxist and a high cultural journal. There was a shift
occurred in Thompson’s thinking, it was his developing critique of the limits
and positions of Stalinism, which was for him as a distortion of the real
tradition of Marxism which he wished to defend. Instead he developed the idea
of Socialist humanism which had a question of agency accordingly. He intended
to prevent talented young people pursuing the ruinous course of joining the
socialist labor league, had an impact. Thompson while continuing to consider
himself important in Marxism had also arrived in the course of his critique of
the Stalinist version of Marxism at a number of positions that are close to
that of others.
The
Major Theoreticians of British Cultural Studies
Raymond Williams
Raymond
Williams is one of the leading literary intellectual in Britain in the later Twentieth
Century. He concentrated to espouse the study of culture and society alongside
that of literature. He is also the founding figure in media studies and
communications. He was the master of Terry Eagleton and Stuart Hall who later
become important figure in literary and cultural studies. He is almost similar
to Hoggart in relation to the biographical details. He too was an adult education
tutor. In his masterwork Culture and society, William unfolds the history of
culture, art, democracy, industry and class. With the publication of culture
and society, William has influenced over the development of cultural studies.
Initially it’s a book of literary history but it focuses on relationship to the
ideas and representation which was his focus point.
His
famous work “Marxism and Literature” (1977), he speaks on many different topics
like literature culture etc. In the Introductory chapter he mentions about
culture he mentions about the concept of society economy and culture. The
concept of culture is associated with that of civilizing. Basically there are
three kinds of culture that are: resident, emergent and dominant. Civilization
and culture in effect are both interchangeable terms. Each carries the sense of
an achieved state and of an achieved state of development. This is the main
ideas he proposes on Culture on Marxism and Literature.
Stuart Hall
Stuart
Hall is the single most prominent and influential theorist of British Cultural
Studies. Hall work within the New Left Circle and he too was interested in
popular Culture. He worked in the education department of the British Film
institute in the early 60’s. His carrier and passion was molded out at the
Birmingham. The different intellectual paradigms like anthropology, sociology,
aesthetics and Marxism etc bedevil Cultural Studies theory of Stuart Hall. One
of his major works is “cultural studies and its theoretical legacies” (1992).
According to Hall Cultural Studies strives to analyze the Hegemonic practices
by which social groups are bound to dominant social forms.
In his essay “Encoding/ Decoding” he tells how
the media messages are produced, circulated consumed and reproduced which
proposes a new theory of communication. He links this communication theory to
that of Marxist theory. He argued that the meaning is not fixed by the sender,
the encoder but by the receiver, the decoder also. Hall in the essay also
speaks about the ‘Lack of Fit’ between the moment of its production and the
moment of its reception I e between the decoding and encoding. According to
Hall Televisual Sign is a combination of Fact and aural or visual sign. The
decoding of the text happens according to decoder depending on his/ her
background. Production, Circulation, Distribution, Consumption and reproduction
are all part of Circuit of communication. In the same essay he also mentions
about three Hypothetical positions.
Catherine
Belsey another figure of British Cultural Studies propagates on the need of
Cultural Criticism rather than Cultural Studies.These three theoreticians are
the main proponents of British Cultural Studies. Though all three differentiate
themselves on each other there leftist approach is remarkable. They show the
resemblance in the Marxist approach in the cultural studies theory. British
cultural studies have marked the beginning of the cultural studies genre in the
background of Birmingham.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alasuutari, P. (1995). Researching
Culture:Qualitative Method and Culture Studies. London: Sage Publications.
Barker, C. (2002). Making
Sense of Cultural Studies;Central Problems and Critical Debates. London:
Sage Publication.
Morley, D., & Chen,
K. H. (Eds.). (1996). Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues In Cultural Studies.
New York: Routledge.
Turner, G. (1990). British
Cultural Studies: An Introduction. NewYork: Routledge.
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