ASHNA PRATHEESH - BRITISH CULTURAL STUDIES

                   British Cultural studies

Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary field, where certain concerns and methods have been connected, it helps the readers to understand more about the field, about the phenomena and its relationships that were usually unaware for the readers, or which was not accessible for them even with help of existing disciplines .Habitually ,it was after the publication of Richard Hoggart’s  The use of literacy (1958) and Raymond Williams, Culture and society , it was after these works that cultural studies has began to be seen .To connect the text with the society what the culturalist did was that rather by just writing about texts and the society separately they connected it together  they reconnected it together .One was  required to think about how culture was figured in, as a whole .

 It was from Structuralism that the British cultural studies had European influence, structuralism has many adaptations, but the common factor that it has is its interest in the systems, the set of relationships, and the formal structures that frame and enable the production of meaning .Richard Hoggart has emphasized that early in the history of cultural studies in Britain, the cultural studies was not stable disciplinary base. The Birmingham school was mainly represented by British Cultural studies

.The four pillars or parents of British cultural studies are Richard Hoggart, E.P Thompson, Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams. Hoggart was a left Leavisite he favoured the uplift mend of the working class people through literary study, it was after the publication of his classical work The use of Literacy appeared in the 1950s, after which he became a celebrated member of various review bodies.

            The role played by Raymond Williams and other British researchersis ground breaking, the works of the European Structuralists like Levis Straus, Saussure, Jacques Lacan Barthes and Foucault, and mainly Althusser and Gramsci are central to British Cultural studies. During the year 1950s cultural studies came into sight as a literary field in Great Britain out of Leavisism, a literary form which was named after F.R Leavis. It was through the works of Hoggart and Williams that the cultural studies has developed because their works or their writings were firstly taken up in the secondary schools and tertiary colleges as it was written, Raymond Williams came in the frame of British Cultural during the early nineteen fifties, later in the twentieth century he was considered as the leading literary intellectual in Britain, he is one of the key figures of British Cultural studies and also of media studies and communication

 One of the important school of British Cultural studies is Frankfurt school of British cultural studies; people like William’s, Hoggart and Thomson shared a common idea of the so called “culture” after the second war

Stuart Hall can be picked up as a person who is been identified with the growth of cultural studies as a distinguishable area of study .Stuart Hall has been identified with Marxism, but still he is also been critical to its reductionist tendencies and popular culture, and he had made his or path or way of studying popular culture,the thoughts  of ideology and Hegemony and the ideas of Gramsci is been used significantly by Hall

 Another name to be mentioned here is Richard Hoggart was a Professor at Birmingham University in 1964, and this made a key for him to act in establishing a centre for contemporary cultural studies, ,it was Hoggart who became its first director .Hoggart considered Cultural studies as his legacy due his authenticity that he concorded to the detailed study of working class culture ,to make it clear that the life he came to know about the ordinary peoples life ,and the way that they seek to live out their lives and to make out their own history

 The modern western culture has given great importance to subjectivity and cultural studies. It was the French Models that broke the earlier forms of cultural studies and it was after that the discipline became internationalized and the main trio reasons that fall under this is are the analysis of the British working class culture, especially in US or Australia (“new world “states which fancied themselves relatively ).Cultural studies knocked out the belief that any theory could stand outside the field of it

Cultural populism a term that became potential among the cultural studies anti hegemonic tradition, cultural studies provides a ground for knowledge of, the multiple audiences and combinations ,buy records ,and watch television and films and it doesn’t fit just into the so called ‘popular’, ‘ordinary’ or ‘normal’

The British Cultural studies coming into the field of American academic science have adopted in inquiring about the disciplinary boundaries and academic classification of knowledge which includes the construction and an appreciation of suitable social research agendas .The research literature of American mass communication studies assured a series of quick rewards due to the arrival of British cultural studies .The Frankfurt school’s work had extended a broad scope of modernist view of the cultural and varied forms of responses among the media scholars and media scholars , it was from the British cultural studies tradition  that it created a political discourse of  intellectual climate  created and maintained by a political discourse ,British culture can be categorised under  intellectual tradition ,it also invoked the critics of mass communication research with its agitating with probe towards contemporary social problems British cultural studies holds its own rendition as a cultural phenomena  ,British cultural studies tries to give more attention to the fact or it gives focus to identity as more like an issue 

Race and gender has played a key role in British cultural studies. It was in the year 1964 that the “Birmingham school for contemporary cultural studies was instituted, the first brain of it was Richard Hoggart, it was accepted to furnish an institutional structure for the study of culture.

         The very term culture is been identified and pointed out by the thinkers and critics in different way according to the situation to which is been attributed, when we talk about culture in literal sense it can have different connotative meaning for a single word culture, while we take the same word into literary sense then also it cannot be defined because when we try to answer a problem or a question in the field or sense of ‘culture’ it may sometimes divert from the very meaning of  what it actually meant.

Bibliography

Miler, Tobby. "A companion to cultural studies." Miller, Tobby. Wiley John & sons , n.d.

Morley, David and Chen Kuan Hsing. "Cultural dialogues in cultural studies." Hall, Stuart. Routledge, n.d.

Turner, Graeme. "British cultural studiies an introduction." Third edition. Routledge, n.d.

 

                                                 British Cultural Studies

Aleena Abraham

         Culture is not a simple term as it seems to be. There are a number of definitions to culture. Culture can be seen as a way of life including activities like brushing teeth to something like following table manners.  Cultural Studies is a discipline that analyses culture theoretically, politically and empirically. It was developed by British Academics in the late 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. Cultural Studies can be interdisciplinary and antidisciplinary. Studying or examining culture as a way of life is the key concern for Cultural studies practitioners.

        A critical development in the field of Cultural studies was made when Richard Hoggart used the term in 1964. A British style of cultural studies was developed in the 1960’s and 70’s. It was articulated and practiced at Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (BCCCS). The aim of British Cultural Studies was to distinguish ‘popular’ culture from ‘mass’ or ‘consumerist’ culture. A distinction was needed because British and European traditions privileged high art over popular or low art.

     The pioneers of Cultural studies were three working class intellectuals namely Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and E.P Thomson. A number of French intellectuals including Roland Barthes, Claude Levi Strauss, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michel de Certeau, pioneered structuralist and post structuralist methodologies for investigating culture. British cultural studies made major contributions to literary and historical theory, ethnography of urban sub-cultures, popular culture and media studies, women’s studies, ethnic studies etc.

      Marxism puts culture in the superstructure. But according to Marxists the main human activity takes place in the base. So if culture is put in the superstructure it lacks activity but in reality culture is highly dependent on human activity. This gives rise to a contradiction. Base shapes superstructure and superstructure maintains the base and legitimizes it. Media presents the dominant or hegemonic culture as the common idea by making it a commonsensical idea. Most of the times it is the culture of the dominant class that is considered to be “cultured” or acceptable. In that way culture is related to civilization as Raymond Williams has portrayed in his book Marxism and Literature. Earlier times culture dealt with animal culture or tissue culture but later it became the order of the society.

        Cultural studies have no strict boundary and as a result everything that is real can be seen as culture. Culture can be gender biased, minority biased, economically biased, class biased, ageist etc. Cultural studies have no specific methodology. British Cultural Studies developed during the Post War years. The idea begins with Raymond Williams. Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (1869) says that the society is heading towards anarchy and only culture can save it.

     A lot of factors affected the development of British Cultural Studies. Educational facilities were provided in Britain after the Second World War and educating the adults was seen as a means of reconstructing the society. Secondly mass produced American culture displaced the traditional popular culture. Thirdly the ideas of French thinkers like Roland Barthes, Althusser and Foucault gave new way to the question of culture. Finally the New Left revived the Marxist Critique of capitalism.

         Richard Hoggart was one of the earlier analyzers of British Industrial working class culture. In “The Uses of Literacy” (1958) Hoggart explores the relation between working class culture and folk culture. The Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies grew out of a shift in the mood and direction of British social, aesthetic and cultural inquiry.

       Raymond Williams’ “Culture and Society” (1958) is one of the most important books in the development of British Cultural Studies. He tries to understand culture by studying the relationship between literature and politics. His notion of culture is largely untheorised. He says that “Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language”.

       F. R Leavis in his Great Tradition says that culture is not a leisure activity. Only Great Tradition can form mature individuals. It is challenged by the tastes of the masses. Cultural capital in a way means power. Williams’ conclusion to culture shows his contrary attitude towards inclusiveness on one side and intellectual and social leadership on the other side.

      E. P Thomson’s The Making of the English Working Class (1980) represents a critical link between cultural theory and politics. He seeks to explain cultural formation in terms of the progress of capitalism. He rejects the notion of class domination. To him the working class is not merely determined but is determining. He completely rejected the Leavisite idea of high and low art. For Thompson everything contributes to the building and legitimation of culture. During the 1970’s he was engaged in a debate concerning the relative value of culturalism and structuralism.

       Stuart Hall asserts that British Cultural Studies is implicated in the politics and postulates of Marxism. To him Cultural Studies exists by working on Marxism, working against Marxism, working to develop Marxism etc. The theoretical interests of Marxism and Cultural Studies never matched because Marxism fails to address the key concerns of Cultural Studies. Hall notes Marxism remains decidedly Eurocentric in its move from structuralist to Gramscian cultural analysis. His idea of culture includes all that is mediated through media, includes the dichotomy of high and low art, includes the practices of the middle and working class, and the politics of all classes and social groups in the society.

     Graeme Turner sees culture as an interdisciplinary field and not as a constellation of disciplines. But culture cannot be seen just as an interdisciplinary field as it is also a set of concepts that problematises the methods of traditional humanities. Every reality can be seen as a culture because a meaning making process is involved in every reality. British Cultural Studies was the first to address the problem of meaning making and the need to understand human experiences known as culture.

       Catherine Belsey in an interview with Paul Bowman talks about a shift from Cultural Studies to Cultural Criticism. Cultural Criticism includes a wider range of materials than Cultural Studies. The strength of Cultural Studies was its popularizing impulse but now it is affected by the disadvantage of populism. She was concerned about the institutionalisation of Cultural Studies. Cultural criticism is the study of meanings. It breaks down the limitations of Cultural Studies and embraces Cultural History. As she suggests “No discipline is forever”. Every new discipline is established to solve the limitations of the already existing disciplines. It is a continuing process and as a result of this every moment a new disclipline is born to cope up with the limitations of the already existing ones.

 Bibliography

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

Oswell, David. Culture and Society- An Introduction to Cultural Studies. California: Sage Publications, 2006.

Lewis, Jeff. Cultural Studies: The Basics. New Delhi: SAGE publications , 2008.

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and practice. 3rd Edition. New Delhi: SAGE publications, 2008.

  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.

Sinobiya P.T-British Cultural Studies

BRITISH CULTURAL STUDIES

The idea of culture is a problematic concept. It is different for different people. In brief, we could take it as a ‘whole way of life’. Cultural Studies is considered to be an interdisciplinary field in which certain concerns and methods have come together. The benefit of this coming togetherness or convergence is that it has contributed to our further understanding of the phenomena and relationships which were not accessible until that time, through the existing disciplines.

Cultural Studies is opined to take its initiative step with the publication of Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy (1958) and Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society and The Long Revolution (1961).When placed within a tradition of English literary criticism, Hoggart and Williams could be identified with F. R. Leavis. They are basically appreciated for their concentration on the form of literary texts and their social or moral significance. They were able to mobilize their methods of textual criticism in order to ‘read’ cultural forms other than literature. For example, popular song or popular fiction.

One of the limitations they suffered was the lack of a method that could analyze the things in which the cultural forms and practices produced their social, not merely their aesthetic, meanings and pleasures. It did undergo a fundamental reorientation to reconnect the texts with the society, the culture and the individuals.

The European influence on British Cultural Studies came largely from structuralism. Though structuralism possessed lots of forms, its common characteristics include an interest in the systems, the sets of relationships and the formal structures which facilitate the production of meaning. The factor within British Cultural Studies was a theory of language and not a theory of culture. So, we could say that language holds in a very high place for understanding other cultural systems too.

According to Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of language, the relation between a word and its meaning is arbitrary in nature, and not inherent or natural. When Saussure insists on the point that the relation between a word and its meaning is constructed and not given, he is taking our attention to the social and cultural dimensions of language. Language as well as the meaning it generates is not natural, but cultural. Culture where meaning mothered and experienced becomes a field out of which social realities are constructed, experienced and interpreted.

In the current day works of Cultural Studies, histories of popular movements are included, particularly in the Britain of the nineteenth century. It also focuses on subcultures and the gaps in official histories, Lacanian studies of subjectivities, ‘ethnographic’ studies of subcultures within contemporary urban societies, the analysis of special media and particular textual forms, studies of media economy, a combination of textual analysis and ethnographic audience studies.

The work of Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall and in particular the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Studies (CCCS) has taken interest in including popular culture- from the mass media to sport to dance crazes- on an audience and intellectual agenda. Not only the role of Williams and other British researchers is important, the work of the European structuralists( Levi Strauss, Saussure, Lacan, Barthes, Foucault) and certain inflections of European Marxism(Althusser, Gramsci) are also central to the formation of British cultural studies.

Roland Barthes had developed the cultural codes of narratives. The Neo- Marxist school of Cultural Studies was introduced by Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society. In Cultural Studies, the marginalized products in the society are considered for the purpose of study. In order to study cultural phenomenon in industrial society, it combines sociology, literary theory, film studies and cultural anthropology.

Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and Catherine Belsey are three prominent figures in the field of British Cultural Studies.

In Encoding and Decoding, Stuart Hall speaks of the circuit of communication. It shows how media messages are produced, circulated and consumed.  He views people as producers and consumers of messages. He also tells how power relations are established through Tele- Visual communication. Based on his idea, the sender is not the sole owner of the message. Also, the message is not transparent; it conceals some power with it. He also adds that audiences are not passive residues.

The real meaning lies not with the producer and receiver, but somewhere in between them. Each of the phases in the model is called as ‘moments’. These moments include production, circulation, consumption and reproduction. The last moment, reproduction, was found by Stuart Hall. Each of the moments are distinct in nature and have individual entity. All are autonomous. They produce their own modalities and have their own conditions of existence. None of them can guarantee the other stage. Every one of them has distinctive or unique existence, but which are all inter- related. He says that there is a ‘lack of fit’ between encoding, the moment of the production of the message and decoding, the moment of its reception.

Televisual communication is a combination of fact and aural/ visual sign. According to him, there are three different hypothetical positions from which decoding or readings of a televisual discourse may be build: (1) dominant- hegemonic position, (2) negotiated code, and (3) oppositional code. In the dominant- hegemonic code, the act of encoding can direct or limit the decoding. In this, whatsoever was encoded by the sender is decoded by the receiver as such. There is no element of questioning. In the negotiated code, encoded as well as the decoded meaning appear almost similar. The viewer understands and complies with it to an extent. In the oppositional code, an opposite meaning to which the sender meant will be decoded by the receiver. Advertisement of deodorants could be taken as an example for the oppositional code. The primary aim of the advertising agent would be to spread the idea that this particular product can attract the attention of many. But the feminist reading of the same would mean that it is actually the objectification of the female body. In this code, the viewer recognizes and opposes the dominant. All three of these positions do not happen in isolation.

Hall breaks the notion of audience as passive consumers. He talks of subjectivity in televisual things which others claim as something that gives objective ideas. Traditionally, media messages are taken as static and of unchanging meaning. But Hall is of the opinion that message sent is seldom the message that is received. He considers a message as systematically distorted. Umpteen numbers of meanings could be derived from a single message. He says that meaning is not fixed and determined by the centre, and also is not transparent in nature.

Hall says that messages are constructed and are active interpretive social events. So is the receiver. Meaning is discursive, which means that it is produced to a discourse and collective experiences play a key role in constructing a meaning.

From Cultural Studies to Cultural Criticism of Catherine Belsey speaks of the institutionalization and reception of the discipline of Cultural Studies. It has grown to such an extent that it has reached the level of endangering itself. She is actually looking at the revival of cultural studies. The thing which was once considered as the strength of cultural studies has now become the weakness. By this, she meant that the impulse popularity has turned out to be populism. Populism is something that impresses the mass and contrast to the interest of the elite. It always went with public general interest.

According to Belsey, most of the current cultural studies researches are momentary, that has no connection with the history. She then speaks of Williams and Hoggart who spoke of the problems of English studies, of high culture; of value judgment etc. she also criticizes Arnold and Eliot for preserving high culture. She later on speaks of New Criticism and New Historicism, which made an impact on cultural studies.

Belsey says that the edge of theory is lost in cultural studies, because of which many practitioners has ignored theories. She means to say that there is nothing unchangeable, everything has to change and is supposed to change- a change within itself. Also, there is a play of meaning which is not referential along with the presentation of an alternative in itself.

She says that high theory is actually needed because theory uses language to speak of complexities. Learning itself has a premise that needs to be changed. History should actually connect itself to the present. Cultural Studies is a field of study of meanings. It can concentrate on present and history. Popular is already within the frame.

In Marxism and Literature, Raymond Williams is trying to revive the Marxist theory to suit the modern or newer kind of society. In a way, he is challenging the conventional theory of Marxism. According to Marxist belief, real or human life is happening in the base and culture is present in the superstructure. Based on this idea, culture cannot be considered as a whole way of life. Williams also speaks of the limitations of Marxism. He says that though Marxism rejected rationalism, it did practice scientific rationalism. Also, Marxism puts culture in superstructure. The traditional notion was that the base actually shapes or creates the superstructure and superstructure actually maintains and legitimizes the base. Williams is of the opinion that base is not a static one; it is a dynamic process in fact. There are deep contradictions, exchanges and mediations between these two, but no direct or apparent similarity exists between the two. He is actually urging for a revival in Marxism, that it should think away from the model and should think production as part of the culture.

Hoggart is yet another important figure. His work The Uses of Literacy could be considered as a schizophrenic work. In the first half portion of the book, there are elements of call for the traditional industrial working- class communities, which are untouched by the commercial culture and educational institutions. In the rest of the half, he provides a practical- critical attack on modern mass culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·         During, Simon, ed. The Cultural Studies Reader. Second. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

·         Turner, Graeme. British Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Third. London: Routledge, 2003.

SHAHAL KK - BRITISH CULTURAL STUDIES

BRIRISH CULTURAL STUDIES

What is culture? As we know that, culture often define as arts, customs and habits that characterize a particular society or nation, same time it calls as the beliefs, values, behavior and material objects that constitute a people’s way of life. But these ideas of ‘culture’ did not be the way in which culture is understood in the domain cultural studies.   

Today, culture is defined as a mode of generating meaning and ideas, and it is ordinary and democratized. In cultural studies meaning are governed by power relation. Simply, so called elite class and their culture controls modes and ways meaning generating process. Their views were considered as ‘mass’ and ‘widely accepted’ while lower classes were marginalized, rejected and their culture considers as ‘tasteless’ and ‘useless’ by who controls whole base and superstructure. What happened that, lower classes were excluded in meaning making process, but these lower classes were to be followed and included in the audience that these elite, high art texts are attracted.

           As mentioned above, cultural studies are more democratized and more attached to the everyday life. So they always look at mass or popular culture. For a very long time, the term ‘mass culture’ was used indiscriminately to denote whole section of society. They considered art cinemas, classical music and art galleries are something that represent whole part of the society. But later this idea of ‘mass culture’ is replaced by ‘popular culture’ which considers comic book, mass cinema, popular music, sports and open and public spaces of the cities are the real symbols of ‘culture’.

            As we know that, these elite classes were minorities, but their culture celebrated as superior, mass and claimed that their culture is true to society. So, in surface level we could see only this so called elite mass culture and its products like ‘great works of art’ and ‘classical authors’. But they did not know that these ‘great works of art’ and ‘classical texts’ were unknown to the common people who constitutes majority in population. So in fact, the standard of judgment and ideas of tastes were formed by elite through their own modes and methodology. When we contextualize it, we can put forward examples like paintings by M.F Hussain, writings of Rabindranath Tagore and William Shakespeare had gained standardization and considered to analyze the society which they belonged. But critics blinded towards the popular arts and writings which celebrated than these so called literary giant’s. Finally this situation and subjugation prompted a change.

           In 1950s and 1960s we could see a rethinking in this way of looking and judging the culture. Academicians and scholars started to dig further into unexplored parts of the society and culture.  When people from lower class began to enter into university education they found that the culture and cultural theory they have to learn from curriculum says nothing about them, but at the same time it had been projected as mass culture. Actually their arrival has broken this dichotomy. This ‘rethinking’ was initiated by Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, both of them had working-class background.

BIRMINGHAM CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL STUDIES

                As we know that aftereffects of World War II had made a far reaching consequences in British society. Suez Canal crisis, Cuban Missile crisis, cold war tension and nuclear arm race had made a pessimistic approach on the people towards future. They thought that, culture and mode of generating meaning and ideas that had been controlled by elite class of society could lead only to disaster. By the decline of colonialism followed by World War II, working class got an opportunity speaks for them. Gradually this socio-political condition paved war for the social progress, prosperity, conservatism, labour shortage, changes from service based industries and so on, all this transmissions con tributed  to a vastly increased demand for education and educators. The new generation academicians and scholars who brought up through these social conditions brought forward new ideas and solution which could resolve the reasons that had led to World War II. Aforementioned, they began to question age old tradition of mass culture and meaning generating process. This new way of thinking set on new approach to the ‘culture’ as academic discipline, critical thinking and education.

              But what we have to recall here is that, there had a marginal interest in the study of working lower class culture and heritage. But they had excluded from the mainstream cultural productions. But the set up of The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham in 1964 accelerated and unified ‘cultural studies’ as academic discipline. It tried to give an egalitarian approach to the culture and valorised popular culture as the most important social expression. Even though, Richard Hoggart was the first director of the centre; it remained under the influence of Raymond Williams and its second director Stuart Hall. 

             Richard Hoggart was the first director of BCCA. He was more interested in industrial and urbanized working class experience. According to many critics, his working class background and his experience in teaching literature to adult from his own social background helped him to analyze and to be touch with condition and culture of his class.

             Raymond Williams considered as one of the pioneers in cultural studies. His magnum opus Culture and Society published in 1958 is one of the important books in the development of British cultural studies. Williams developed a new way of close reading by being conscious about the context within which the literary texts functions. He was so sensitive to the ideological and institutional process that contributed the creation and generation of texts and textual meaning. The meaning produces in these texts are important and contribute to the construction of culture as a way of life.

              Stuart Hall is another important figure in cultural studies. His work has prompted and inaugurated cultural studies as a literary field in Britain. His famous essay, Decoding/Encoding in the television discourses, published in 1973 put forward a cultural studies of the media. Through this essay he states how messages are produced and disseminated. According to him, meanings within the texts are organized through the operation of certain ‘codes’. For this operation he suggests four stage theories of communication, production, circulation, and reproduction. Each stage has an autonomous power in meaning generation but interdependent. No matter who encodes the message. Here, audience has a unique power in decoding message. Member decodes or interpret message based on his or her cultural and political context and personal experiences.

Bibliography

Lewis, J. (2008). Cultural Studies The Basics. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Nair, P. (2008). An Introduction to Cultural Stusies. New Delhi: Viva Book Pvt.Ltd.

Turner, G. (2003). British Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge.

                                                            

British cultural studies

British cultural studies

Cultural studies are mainly something about the popular culture and the theoretical and political analysis of it. Meaghan Morris puts it an unprecedented international boom. Cultural studies especially deals the intellectual thoughts about the political, racial, sexual the all area that touch a popular culture. Early in the history of cultural studies in Britain “Richard Hoggart stressed that cultural studies had no stable disciplinary base”, this discipline begin with the publication of Richard Hoggart’s the use of literary and Raymond William’s culture and society. Paul Willis has said that the culture that in the subject of British cultural studies is not artifice and manners, the common things of the daily life like the eating, watching, and dressing are also a matter for the cultural studies. The works of Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall and the Birmingham centre for contemporary cultural studies had established the notion of popular culture. Levi Strauss, Lacan, Barthes, Foucault and Althussar are associated with the formation of cultural studies. Structuralism has influenced the British cultural studies. In the post world war period cultural studies become prominent in Briton and in that culture the class system disappeared because of the revival of the industrial production and the establishment of the welfare state are form Briton enter into a new one and modern culture with also the influence of the Americanization. The establishment of the visual arts, architecture, graphic design and pope art in the contemporary arts in London also lead to the development of this discipline and it happened in the form of a movement by the independent group 1950s it also enlarge the area of cultural studies to all peoples rather than the elite class. The fact that British cultural studies is basically oppose the popular culture. The purchase of the mass culture from the popular novel, women’s magazine, the cinema, television and the popular songs are the main source for cultural studies at that period. In the time of war the war the concern of war generally depends on the forms of representation especially from the mass media here we can see the view from the different perspective and also the cultural studies focus on the critical journals of F.R.Levis, Deny Thompson and L.C.Knight , but they mainly find its deficiencies and its lack of moral seriousness or aesthetic value. The present modern British culture compare with its earlier albeit mythical, folk culture, and find that the present is very bad.

            In the 1950s and 1960s the scholarship students rebuild the popular culture, and British cultural studies also has a link with the adult education and the rethinking of the history also helped it Hall and Waannel’s the power arts and Denys Thompson‘s discrimination and popular culture are some books that come at that period, but Thompson’s collection deal with confusion of the mixing of elite method of analysis and the democratic humanistic interest of the everyday life. The Birmingham centre for contemporary cultural studies is a key institution in the history of cultural studies of Briton and also worldwide aspect. Dick Hebdiges, Dorothy Hobson, Stuart Laing and Stuart Hall are also associated with this centre. The CCCS was established at the University of Briton in 1964. Hoggart was its director. Hoggart’s main focus on the project of the cultural studies was based on the mass media and through the ideology of the media he analysed the culture of Briton and the media defined as the major cultural and ideological force. The replacement of Stuart Hall as the director change the way of study of media and ideology with the analysis of signifying systems in the text and this textual analysis give the way to a historical study. The methodological practice of cultural studies is by the reading of cultural products and social practice as text, with the media products and popular cultural forms British cultural studies enlarge its territory. The practitioners like Hoggart, Williams, and Hall and Whannel are made their well part in extension and development of this study and a new way with semiotics also included to this discipline. Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding in television discourse is a turning point in that era of cultural studies. He gives a new theory for the cultural production and reception rather different from the American way of communication model. British cultural studies mainly focus on the issues of identity. In the encoding and decoding of television discourse Stuart Hall says that the message that come from the sender to receiver has not accepted in the same meaning that produced from the sender it has its own existence. Hall insist that in any kind of communication there is nothing called natural the society is made up of different aspects of interest and because the way it accept is different. He put forward three hypothetical positions that are dominant hegemonic position, negotiated position, oppositional position through the introduction of these three positions  he explored the theory that how the receiver accept the message according to his critical ability. He sees these positions as discrete, the text have different meaning his idea also give the idea about the polysemic nature of the message. In this way of cultural studies the audience is also an important factor. David Morley’s the nationwide audience, the family television are important books it characterise the close relation between the audience members individual interpretation of the television message and how it differ according to their social position.

            Cultural studies mainly focus on the identity issues, and because of this reason it is descriptive and aim at the identity and the relation to political and cultural environment. According to James Carey, “British cultural studies could be described just as easily and perhaps more accurately as ideological studies for they assimilate, in a variety of complex ways, culture to identity”. It is true that when cultural study separate from the economic aspect it will succeed. History and sociology are two integral associated disciplines of cultural studies. The CCCS has great affinity towards ethnography. Richard Johnson suggest” that cultural studies are a process, an alchemy for producing useful knowledge about the broad domain of human culture “ William’s culture and society and the long revolution , Hoggart’s the use of literary E.P.Thomson’s the making of the English working class are important works in the building of British cultural studies. British cultural studies have its own mode of research. Cultural studies challenge the narrow thinking of humanities and social sciences it enrich our knowledge and enable the crossing of disciplinary borders. Cultural studies mainly have a social function. The practice of cultural study will change our way of looking at the world. The British cultural study provides a methodological way for the cultural study especially through the television discourse and also through the mass media.

Bibliography

Lawrence Grossberg, C. N. (Ed.). (1992). Cultural Studies.

Turner, G. British cultural studies (3rd ed.).

    

        

Anu N Govind             British Cultural Studies

                 Culture, The term culture has many different meanings. Precisely, we can say that culture is a way of life of class of people- the behavior, belief, value and symbol that they accept and they are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to generation. The word ‘culture’ derives from the Latin term called ‘colere’ which means, ‘to tend to earth and grow, or cultivation and nurture.  The word culture had occur a transition from the tending of crops and animals and by the extension the growth and tending of human faculties after that the term culture equated with civilization in the eighteenth century.

                      The meaning of ‘Culture’ has changed from the traditional meaning by the arrival of cultural studies. Cultural study is an advanced interdisciplinary field of research and teaching which investigates the ways that culture transforms individual experiences, everyday life, social relations and power. In cultural studies the meaning of culture has transformed into mode of generating meaning and ideas but the in the control of the meaning are done by the elite class. The meanings are governed by power relations. In cultural studies, the meaning of culture is depends upon the society or community generates. Cultural Studies mainly focus on the study of cultural process and especially of popular culture. Culture studies are always conscious about the mass culture and everyday life. The works that written by the Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, and Stuart Hall in particular Brmingham centre for cultural studies has established the consideration of popular culture.  

                          British Cultural Criticism emerged from at the centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, aninter disciplinary research that Richard Hoggart and Stuart Hall started at the University Of Brimingham in 1964. Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams were the key figures of the British cultural criticism. Richard Hoggart was one of the first ‘Culturalist’ writers. The important work that he contributed was ‘use of literacy’ (1957) and other main thing was, he was the person who laid the foundation of Brimingham centre for contemporary culture studies. This is one of the institutions that stand as an aid to establish the Cultural Studies in Britain. The work ‘use of literacy’ is well discussed on the media, popular culture, meaning and value of working class.  Williams, Hoggart and Hall all worked as adult education tutors early in their carriers. The use of literacy was a persona experience of author, through this he gave an inside view of working class life of pre- war period.  Richard Hoggart was concerned about creating the mass culture which replaced other values with those of consumerism and mass consumption. Hogart was more anxious about the working class because they are threatened by the ‘Competitive commerce’ the term called by Richard Hoggart. The work ‘ Use of literacy’ has give a profound influence on the Cultural Studies at the centre.  He also criticized the culture of contemporary society in the work; he is not believed high culture was the standard culture. Hoggart believes in traditional culture of working class. Through this work Brimngham became the centre for Cultural Studies.

            Cultural Studies were also shaped by the Raymond Williams, who come after Richard Hoggart. The place theoretical pioneer was hand over to the Raymond Williams.  Raymond Williams also came from the working class background. He spends most of his time in career as a adult education. The important work that wrote was ‘Culture and Society’(1966) came out as an education on the basis of culture. In this work Raymond Williams look upon ‘culture’ as new term that completely torn apart from the traditional meaning. Raymond Williams look upon culture as ‘whole way of life, material, intellectual and spiritual.’ Through the work ‘culture and society’ Williams developed a concept about culture that went beyond the literary conception dominant in the British academy. In the essay he also discuss about the ‘high culture’ and ‘low culture’. The aim of this essay was to gave an adequate definition of culture, through this he gave an understanding about culture by emplacing the term in social and political changes brought about under industrial capitalism. Raymond Williams moves away from the traditional Marxism and he approach the Marxism in a new perspective. Williams another important book was ‘Long Revolution’ which was published in 1961. The book ‘Long Revolution’ mainly focusing on cultural institutions, their ideologies and discourse. This book is all about progressive change, revolution that happened in Britain through industrialization, democratization and cultural transformation. The book ‘Long Revolution’ laid down a strong theoretical foundation to the Cultural studies. 

   E. M Thompson also has a role in shaping the cultural studies. Thompson was also influenced by the Marxist background and he is historian. The work that he wrote, ‘the making of English working class’ has big impact on the Cultural Studies and its have a profound influence on the British social history and also have influence on the popular culture, class and sub cultures. In the book ‘ the making of English working class’ contain the formation of working class between the years 1780 and 1832. In this book they also add the rise of industrial revolution and the moment in the 19^th century. According to Thompson culture was a lived network of practices and relationship that constituted everyday life within which role of the individual subject had to be fore grounded.

Stuart Hall is one of the most important and influential figures in British cultural studies because he laid a strong foundation to the British cultural studies centre in Brimingham University. He was the founding member new left in Britain. Stuart Hall first book was ‘Popular arts’ was deeply indebted to Hoggart and Williams. He remains as a major figure in the British cultural studies. Stuart Hall was the one who presents the circuiting model of culture. A culture gathers meaning through different ‘moments’- he tabled it as production, circulation, distribution, consumption, and reproduction. He redefined the linear model of communication instead he suggested the circular model. The researchers in the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies are very much interested in the relation between media and culture; this is very much reflected in his essays.

British cultural studies laid the foundation for a new discipline and academic studies. British cultural studies gave a new definition to the culture that differs from the traditional definition. The cultural studies became a global phenomenon of great importance. From the beginning itself British cultural studies rejected the low culture and high culture. These are the main studies that British cultural studies had done.

                 

  Bibliography

Lewis, J. (2008). Cultural Studies. New Delhi: Saga Publications.

Nayaar, P. k. (2008). An introduction to the cultural studies. New Delhi: Viva Books.

Turner, G. (2003). British Cultural Studies an Introduction. New York: Routledge.