Five Types of Cultural Studies

Five Types of Cultural Studies

Name:  Pritiba B. Gohil

Roll No. :  21

Course No. 8-C: The Cultural Studies

TOPIC: Five Types of Cultural Studies

M.A. English Semester - 2

Batch: 2014 - 2016

Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Submitted to :-

Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad,

Head of the Department,

Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

INTRODUCTION:-

As we are going to discuss five types of cultural studies before that we have to understand that What is culture ?? And what is cultural studies ?? So let’s discuss these both. First of all let’s talk about culture that what is culture??.

What is culture ? :-

·         The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.

·         The ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society.

What is Culture? or Definition of Culture :-

Definition of Culture  :-

Culture is the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. Today, in the United States as in other countries populated largely by immigrants, the culture is influenced by the many groups of people that now make up the country.

And there are some types of culture like,

·         Western Culture :- The term Western culture has come to define the culture of European countries as well as those such as the United States that have been heavily influenced by European immigration. Western culture has its roots in the Classical Period of the Greco-Roman era and the rise of Christianity in the 14th century. Other drivers of the Western culture include Latin, Celtic, Germanic and Hellenic ethnic and linguistic groups. Today, the influences of Western culture can be seen in almost every country in the world.

·         Eastern Culture :- Eastern culture generally refers to the societal norms of countries in Far East Asia (including China, Japan, Vietnam, North Korea and South Korea) and the Indian subcontinent. Like the West, Eastern culture was heavily influenced by religion during its early development. In general, in Eastern culture there is less of a distinction between secular society and religious philosophy than there is in the West.

·        Latin Culture :- Many of the Spanish-speaking nations are considered part of the Latin culture, while the geographic region is widespread. Latin America is typically defined as those parts of the Central America, South America and Mexico where Spanish or Portuguese are the dominant languages. While Spain and Portugal are on the European continent, they are considered the key influencers of what is known as Latin culture, which denotes people using languages derived from Latin, also known as Romance languages.

·         Middle Eastern Culture :- The countries of the Middle East have some but not all things in common, including a strong belief in Islam and religion is a very strong pillar of this society. The Arabic language is also common throughout the region; however, the wide variety of dialect can sometimes make communication difficult.

·        African Culture :- The continent of Africa is essential two cultures — North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. The continent is comprised of a number of tribes, ethnic and social groups. One of the key features of this culture is the large number of ethnic groups — some countries can have 20 or more — and the diversity of their beliefs Northwest Africa in particular has strong ties to European and Southwestern Asia. The area also has a heavy Islamic influence and is a major player in the Arab world. The harsh environment has been a large factor in the development of Sub-Saharan Africa culture, as there are a number of languages, cuisines, art and musical styles that have sprung up among the far-flung populations.

Now let’s talk about cultural studies that what is cultural studies ?

What is Cultural studies ?

Definition :-

Cultural studies is an innovative interdisciplinary field of research and teaching that investigates the ways in which “culture” creates and transforms individual experiences, everyday life, social relations and power.

Cultural studies is an innovative interdisciplinary field of research and teaching that investigates the ways in which “culture” creates and transforms individual experiences, everyday life, social relations and power. Research and teaching in the field explores the relations between culture understood as human expressive and symbolic activities, and cultures understood as distinctive ways of life. Combining the strengths of the social sciences and the humanities, cultural studies draws on methods and theories from literary studies, sociology, communications studies, history, cultural anthropology, and economics. By working across the boundaries among these fields, cultural studies addresses new questions and problems of today’s world. Rather than seeking answers that will hold for all time, cultural studies develops flexible tools that adapt to this rapidly changing world.

Cultural life is not only concerned with symbolic communication, it is also the domain in which we set collective tasks for ourselves and begin to grapple with them as changing communities. Cultural studies is devoted to understanding the processes through which societies and the diverse groups within them come to terms with history, community life, and the challenges of the future.

Cultural Studies explores culture, power, and identity. In Cultural Studies, we analyze a wide variety of forms of cultural expression, such as TV, film, advertising, literature, art, and video games. As well, we study social and cultural practices, like shopping, cell phone use, and social justice movements. We are concerned with thinking about identity and social roles, including gender, sexuality, race, class, and nation. Cultural Studies research and teaching seeks to be self-critical, self-reflexive, and engaged. It challenges dominant or “normal” assumptions about who we are, in relation to others, and how.

“Culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested. These are the ordinary processes of human societies and human minds, and we see through them the nature of a culture: that it is always both traditional and creative; that it is both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. We use the word culture in these two senses: to mean a whole way of life--the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning--the special processes of discovery and creative effort.” – Raymond Williams.

“To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students.” – Bell Hooks.

“It is the underlying philosophical nature that gives this program significance. What one thinks they know about popular cultural can become completely destabilized and reorganized to create an entirely different understanding of the world in which we live. It is in this way that cultural studies explore larger layers of significance and meaning in the world. It reveals aspects of the familiar that are hidden, confusing and meaningful.”

Cultural Studies traces the relationships among aesthetic, anthropological, and political economic aspects of cultural production and reproduction.  Cultural studies scholars and practitioners often begin their inquiries by questioning the common understandings, beliefs, and histories that shape our world.  This type of inquiry assumes that culture is not a fact to be understood and explained.  What demands attention is how culture constitutes diverse worlds and how it can be mobilized to change those worlds.

Cultural Studies relies on interdisciplinary research on the formation of knowledge, power, and difference.  Cultural Studies scholars and practitioners explore constructions of race, class, ability, citizenship, gender, and sexuality in their effort to understand the structures and practices of domination and resistance that shape contemporary societies. Many different topics surface as part of this exploration: everyday practices that structure the creation and reception of cultural artefacts; relations between producers and consumers in the circulation of global commodities; claims to membership in particular communities as they undergo transformation.

After discussion of What is culture? And What is cultural studies? Let’s elaborate types of cultural studies.

Five Types of Cultural Studies :-

As we know that

1.      First, :-  cultural studies transcends the confines of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history. Cultural studies involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of a text and drawing conclusions about the changes in textual phenomena over time.

2.      Second, :- cultural studies is politically engaged. Cultural critics see themselves as “oppositional,” not only within their own disciplines but to many of the power structures of society at large.

3.       Third, :- cultural studies denies the separation of “high” and “low” or elite and popular (mass) culture.  Rather than determining which are the “best” works produced, cultural critics describe what is produced and how various productions relate to one another. Cultural critics aim to reveal the political, economic reasons why a certain cultural product is more baled at certain times than others.

4.      Finally, :- cultural studies analyzes not only the cultural work, but also the means of production. Cultural studies joins subjectivity– that is, culture in relation to individual lives– with engagement, a direct approach to attacking social ills.

Now let’s talk about Five Types of Cultural Studies.

Five Types of Cultural Studies :-

1. British Cultural Materialism
2. New Historicism
3. American Multiculturalism

ü  African American Writers

ü  Latina/o Writers

ü  American Indian Literatures

ü  Asian American Writers

4. Postmodernism and Popular Culture

5.       Postcolonial Studies

Now let’s discuss this all types in details.

(1)               British Cultural Materialism  :-

Cultural materialism began in earnest in the 1950s with the work of F. R. Leavis, heavily influenced by Matthew Arnold’s analyses of bourgeois culture.

Matthew Arnold sought to redline the “givens” of British culture. To appreciate the importance of this revision of “culture” we must situate it within the controlling myth of social and political reality of the British Empire upon which the sun never set, an ideology left over from the previous century. In modern Britain two trajectories for “Culture” developed one led back to the past and the feudal hierarchies that ordered community in the past; here, culture acted in its sacred function as preserver of the past. Cultural materialism began in earnest in the 1950s with the work of F.R. Leavis sought to use the educational system to distribute literary knowledge and appreciation more widely promoted the “great tradition “ of Shakespeare and Milton to improve the moral sensibilities of a wider range of readers than just the elite.

Cultural materialists also turned to the more humanized and even spiritual insights of the great students of Rabelais and Dostoevsky, Russain formalist Bakhtn, especially his amplification of the dialogic form of communal, individual and social.

Culture stand is referred to as ‘culture materialism in Britain and it. has a long tradition .In the later ninetieth century Mathew Arnold sought to redefine the ''givens of British culture Edward Burnet Tyler’s pioneering anthropological study primitive culture or civilization taken in widest anthropology sense is a complete whole whose 'includes knowledge ,belief 'or morals. Law custom and any other capacities’ and habits acquired by man as a manner of society.

(2)               New Historicism :-

As a return to historical scholarship, new historicism concerns itself with extra literary matters– letters, diaries, films, paintings, medical treatises– looking to reveal opposing historical tensions in a text. New historicists seek “surprising coincidences” that may cross generic, historical, and cultural lines in borrowings of metaphor, ceremony, or popular culture. The new historicism rejects the periodization of history in favor of ordering history only through the interplay of forms of power.

New Historicism focuses on the way literature expresses-and sometimes disguises-power relations at work in the social context in which the literature was produced, often this involves making connections between a literary work and other kinds of texts. Literature is often shown to “negotiate” conflicting power interests. New historicism has made its biggest mark on literary studies of the Renaissances and Romantic periods and has revised motions of literature as privileged, apolitical writing. Much new historicism focuses on the marginalization of subjects such as those identified as witches, the insane, heretics, vagabonds, and political prisoners.

Laputa ''the where ''what did Jonathan swift mean when he gave that name to the flying island in the third voyage of Gulliver’s Travels? It is a question that has political reality of the British Empire upon which the sun never set an ideology left over from the previous century. In modern Britain two trajectories for cultural developed one led back to the past and the feudal hierarchies that ordered community in past hear culture acted in its sacred function as preserver of the past.

(3)               American Multiculturalism :-

As we discuss above that this American Multiculturalism have its different four types like,

ü  African American Writers

ü  Latina/o Writers

ü  American Indian Literatures

ü  Asian American Writers

ü African American Writers :- African American writers is widely pursued in American literature criticism from the recovery of the eighteenth century poets such as Phillies wealthy to the experimental novel of Toni Morison, In Shadow and Act 1964novel Ralph Ellison Argue that any viable theatre of Negro American culture obligates us to fashion a more adequate theory of American culture as a what''.

ü  Latina/o Writers :- Latina/o Writer Hispanic Mexican American, Puerto Rican Nuyarican Chicane may be Huizhou or Maya. Which names to use/ the choice after has political implications. We will use the term'' Latina/o to indicate a broad sense of Ethnicity among Spanish speaking ,people n the united states Mexican American are the largest and most influential of Latina/o Ethnicities in the united states.

ü American Indian Literatures :- In pre dominantly oral cultures, stalling passes and religious beliefs, moral values, political codes and practical lesson of everyday life .For American Indians stories are a source of strength in the face of centuries of silencing by Euro American.

ü  Asian American Writers :- Asian American literature is written by people of Asian descent in the United States addressing the experience of living in a society that views them as alien. Asian immigrants were denied citizenship as late as the1950s.Edward said has written of Orientals, or the tendency to objectify and exoticism Asian, and their work has sought to respond to such stereotypes Asian American writer include Chinese Japanese , Korean Filipino, Vietnamese, Asian , Polynesian and many other peoples of as a the Indian subcontinent , and pacific.

The idea that American identity is vested in a commitment to core values expressed in the American Creed and the ideals of Exceptionalism raises a fundamental concern that has been the source of considerable debate. Can American identity be meaningfully established by a commitment to core values and ideals among a population that is becoming increasingly heterogeneous? Since the 1960s, scholars and political activists, recognizing that the “melting pot” concept fails to acknowledge that immigrant groups do not, and should not, entirely abandon their distinct identities, embraced multiculturalism and diversity. Racial and ethnic groups maintain many of their basic traits and cultural attributes, while at the same time their orientations change through marriage and interactions with other groups in society. The American Studies curriculum serves to illustrate this shift in attitude. The curriculum, which had for decades relied upon the “melting pot” metaphor as an organizing framework, began to employ the alternative notion of the “American mosaic.”

Multiculturalism, in the context of the “American mosaic,” celebrates the unique cultural heritage of racial and ethnic groups, some of whom seek to preserve their native languages and lifestyles. In a sense, individuals can be Americans and at the same time claim other identities, including those based on racial and ethnic heritage, gender, and sexual preference.

(4) Postmodernism and popular culture :-

Postmodernism and Popular Culture brings together eleven recent essays by Angela McRobbie in a collection which deals with the issues which have dominated cultural studies over the last ten years.
A key theme is the notion of post modernity as a space for social change and political potential. McRobbie explores everyday life as a site of immense social and psychic complexity to which she argues that cultural studies scholars must return through ethnic and empirical work; the sound of living voices and spoken language. She also argues for feminists working in the field to continue to question the place and meaning of feminist theory in a postmodern society. In addition, she examines the new youth cultures as images of social change and signs of profound social transformation. Bringing together complex ideas about cultural studies today in a lively and accessible format.

Postmodernism questions everything rationalist European philosophy held to be true. Postmodernism argues that it is all contingent and that most cultural constructions have served the function of empowering members of a dominant social group at the expense of “others.” Popular culture: there are four main types of popular culture analysis: production analysis, textual analysis, audience analysis, and historical analysis.

Postmodernism like poststructuralist and deconstruction is a critique of aesthetic of the preceding age, but besides more critique post modernism celebrates the very act of dismembering tradition. Postmodernism question everything rationalist European philosophy held to true, arguing that it is all counting and that most culture constructions have served the function of empowering member of dominant social group at the experience of other beginning in the mid1980. Post modernism emerged in art.

As we discuss four types of American Multiculturalism here we have another two types of Postmodernism and Popular Culture.

1.    Postmodernism

2.    Popular Culture       
        

[1] Postmodernism :-


Postmodernism describes a range of conceptual frameworks and ideologies that are defined in opposition to those commonly attributed to modernism and modernist notions of knowledge and science, as, materialism, realism, positivism, formalism, structuralism, and reductionism. Postmodernist approaches are critical of the possibility of objective knowledge of the real world, and consider the ways in which social dynamics such as power and hierarchy affect human conceptualizations of the world to have important effects on the way knowledge is constructed and used. In contrast to the modernist paradigm, postmodernist thought often emphasize idealism, constructivism, relativism, pluralism and scepticism in its approaches to knowledge and understanding.

It is not a philosophical movement in itself, but rather, incorporates a number of philosophical and critical methods that can be considered ‘postmodern’; the most familiar include feminism and post-structuralism. Put another way, postmodernism is not a method of doing philosophy, but rather a way of approaching traditional ideas and practices in non-traditional ways that deviate from pre-established super structural modes. This has caused difficulties in defining what postmodernism actually means or should mean and therefore remains a complex and controversial concept, which continues to be debated. The idea of the postmodern gained momentum through to the 1950s before dominating literature, art and the intellectual scene of the 1960s.Postmodernism's origins are generally accepted as having been conceived in art around the end of the nineteenth century as a reaction to the stultifying legacy of modern art and continued to expand into other disciplines during the early twentieth century as a reaction against modernism in general.

[2] Popular  culture : -

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are preferred by an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society.

Popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and dumped-down in order to find consensual acceptance throughout the mainstream. As a result, it comes under heavy criticism from various non-mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and countercultural groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted

The term "popular culture" was coined in the 19th century or earlier refers to the education and general "cult redness" of the lower classes, as was delivered in an address at the England. The term began to assume the meaning of a culture of the lower classes separate from (and sometimes opposed to) "true education" towards the end of the century, a usage that became established by the antebellum period. The current meaning of the term, culture for mass consumption, especially originating in the United States, is established by the end of World War II the abbreviated form "pop culture" dates to the 1960s.

(5) Postcolonial Studies :-

Post colonialism refers to a historical phase undergone by the Third World countries after the decline of colonialism. Many Third World writers focus on both colonialism and the changes created in a postcolonial culture.

The critical nature of postcolonial theory entails destabilizing Western ways of thinking, therefore creating space for the subaltern or marginalized groups, to speak and produce alternatives to dominant discourse. Often, the term post colonialism is taken literally, to mean the period of time after colonialism. This however, is problematic because the ‘once-colonized world’ is full of “contradictions, of half-finished processes, of confusions, of hybridist, and liminalities” .In other words, it is important to accept the plural nature of the word post colonialism, as it does not simply refer to the period after the colonial era. By some definitions, post colonialism can also be seen as a continuation of colonialism, albeit through different or new relationships concerning power and the control/production of knowledge. Due to these similarities, it is debated whether to hyphenate post colonialism as to symbolize that we have fully moved beyond colonialism.

Post-colonialist thinkers recognize that many of the assumptions which underlie the "logic" of colonialism are still active forces today. Some postcolonial theorists make the argument that studying both dominant knowledge sets and marginalized ones as binary opposites perpetuates their existence as homogenous entities. Homi K. Bhabha feels the postcolonial world should valorise spaces of mixing; spaces where truth and authenticity move aside for ambiguity. This space of hybridist, he argues, offers the most profound challenge to colonialism. Critiques that Bhabha ignores Spaak’s stated usefulness of essentialism have been put forward. Reference is made to essentialisms' potential usefulness. An organized voice provides a more powerful challenge to dominant knowledge - whether in academia or active protests.

Post colonial refer to a historian phase undergone by third world countries after the decline of colonialism for era, when countries in Asian Africa, Latina/o America, and the Caribbean separated from the European emperies and were left to rebuild themselves. Many third words write focus on both colonialism and the change created a postcolonial culture.

CONCLUSION:-

So, this all are Five Types of Cultural Studies. For understand culture we have to understand cultural studies.

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