Name : Bhavna Sosa
M.A. Sem : 3
Roll no. : 2
Batch : 2021 - 23
bhavnasosa211@gmail.com
Paper Name : 205 Cultural Studies
Topic : Four Goals of Cultural Studies
Submitted to: Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English MKBU
Introduction :
Cultural studies is a field of theoretically, politically, and empirically engaged cultural analysis that concentrates upon the political dynamics of contemporary culture, its historical foundations, defining traits, conflicts, and contingencies.So here we see what is the meaning of Cultural Studies and four goals of Cultural Studies.
Cultural studies is the exploration of "culture," what Raymond Williams calls nothing less than "one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language." Cultural studies analyzes the artistic, social, political, and historical texts and objects that help construct our contemporary lives, and it assumes that such objects go well beyond "mere entertainment" and affect deeply how we perceive class, race, gender, and other markers of identity. As an introduction to the theory and practice of cultural studies, this course will familiarize students with some of the most important thinkers and methodologies in the field and will allow students to use some of the tools of critical analysis to analyze different forms of cultural production, including literature, popular culture, and print and electronic media.
What is Cultural Studies ?
Culture is anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be directly attributed to genetic inheritance. The term culture in American anthropology had two meanings-
(I) evolved to classify and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and creatively.
(ii) the distinct ways that people live, differently, classified and represent their experiences and acted creatively.
Culture is central to the way we view, experience and engage with all aspects of our lives and the world around us. Even our definitions are shaped by the historical, political, social and cultural contexts in which we live. Culture is the mode of generating meanings and ideas. This mode of negotiation under which meanings are generated by power relations. Culture is a social phenomena which tends to regularate the mindset and behaviour of people which is set on ancient rules and regularities and experiences. Culture is the identity of particular society and it is the mirror of the society. Culture in a simple way can be said as a particular way of life. Tradition, customs, rules and regulations, norms, artifacts (signs), religions, communities, material things, journey of 'Man' from caves to present day civilization are also culture. opposite of nature is culture. Nature is outside and the moment Man enters, it becomes culture.
Four Goals of Cultural Studies :
1 ) Cultural studies transcended the confines of particular discipline such as literary criticism.
2) Cultural studies are politically engaged.
3) Cultural studies deny the separation of “high” and “low” or elite and popular culture.
4) Cultural studies analyze not only the cultural work, but the means of production.
Cultural studies involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of a text- for example, Italian Opera, a Latino telenovela, the architectural styles of prisons, body piercing- and drawing conclusions about the changes in textual phenomena over time.Cultural studies transcend the confine of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history. “practiced in such journal as critical inquiry , representations, and boundary 2 , cultural studies involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of a text – for example Italian opera, a Latino telenovela, the architectural styles of prisons, body piercing and drawing conclusion about the change in textual phenomena over time.
Cultural studies are not necessarily about literature in the traditional sense or even about “art”. In their introduction to cultural studies , editors Lawrence grossberg,cary nelson , and Paula trencher emphasize that the intellectual promise of cultural studies lies in the attempts to “ cut across diverse social and political interests and address many of the struggles within the current scene.”
Cultural studies is not necessarily about literature in the traditional sense or even about "art". Intellectual works are not limited by their own "borders" as single texts, historical problems or even disciplines, and the critic's own personal connections to what is being analysed may also be described. Henry Giroux and others write in their Dalhousie Review manifesto that cultural studies practitioner are "resisting intellectuals", who see what they do as "an emancipatory project" because it erodes the traditional disciplinary divisions in most institutions of higher education. But this kind of criticism, like feminism, is an engaged rather than a detached activity.
2) 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 the society at large. They question inequalities within power structures and seek to discover models for restructuring relationships among dominant and "minority" or "subaltern" discourses. Because meaning and individual subjectivity are culturally constructed, thus they can be reconstructed. Such a notion, taken to a philosophical extreme, denies the autonomy of the individual, whether an actual person or a character in literature, a rebuttal of the traditional humanistic "Great Man" or "Great Book" theory, and a relocation of aesthetics and culture from the ideal realms of test and sensibility into the arena of a whole society's everyday life as it is constructed.
3) Cultural studies denies the separation of “High” and “ Low “or elite and popular culture:
“Cultural studies deny the separation of high and low or elite and popular culture.” I might hear someone remark at the symphony or art museum: “I came here to get a little culture”.
Being a “cultured” person used to mean being acquainted with “highbrow” art and intellectual pursuits. But isn’t culture also to be found with a pair of tickets to a rock concert?
Cultural critic’s today work to transfer the term culture today work to transfer the term culture to include mass culture, whether popular, folk, or urban. The Following theorists Jean Baudrillard and Andreas huyssen of the cultural critics argue that after world war ii the distinctions among high , low and mass culture collapsed , and they cite other theorists such as Pierre Boundiry and Dick Hedbige on how “good taste” only reflects prevailing social, economic and political power bases. For example , the images of india that were circulated during the colonical rule of the british raj by writes like by Rudyard kipling seem innocent , but reveal an entrenched imperialist argument for white superiority and worldwide domination of other races, especially Asians. But race along was not the issue for the British raj, money was also a deciding factor But drawing also upon the ideas of french historian michel de certeau, cultural critics examine.Rather than determining which are the "best" works produced, cultural critics describe what is produced and how various productions relate to one another. They aim to reveal the political, economic reasons why a certain cultural product is more valued at certain times than others. "The Birth of Captain Jack Sparrow: An Analysis" and " Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)" are some famous works and movies.
4) Cultural studies analyses not only the cultural work, but also means of production :
Marxist critics have long recognized the importance of such para literary questions as these: who supports a given artist? A well known analysis of literary production is Janice Radway's Study of the American romance novel and its readers, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature, which demonstrates the textual effects of the publishing industry's decisions about books that will minimize its financial risks. Reading in America, edited by Cathy N. Davidson, which includes essay on literacy and gender in Colonial New England; urban magazine audiences in Eighteenth Century New York city; the impact upon reading of technical innovations as cheaper eyeglasses, electric lights, and trains; the Book-of -the-Month Club; and how writers and texts go through fluctuations of popularity and canonicity. These studies help us recognise that literature does not occur in a space separate from other concerns of our lives.
Cultural studies thus joins subjectivity that is, culture in relation to individual lives- with engagement, a direct approach to attacking social ills. Though cultural studies practitioners deny "humanism" or "the humanities" as universal categories, they strive for what they might call "social reason" which often (closely) resembles the goals and values of humanistic and democratic ideals.Cultural studies analyzes not only the cultural work but also the means of production.
Conclusion :
Cultural studies has evolved through the confluence of various disciplines—anthropology, media studies, communication studies, Literary Studies, education, geography, philosophy, sociology, politics, and others.Cultural Studies criticizes the traditional view of the passive consumer, particularly by underlining the different ways people read, receive and interpret cultural texts, or appropriate other kinds of cultural products, or otherwise participate in the production and circulation of meanings.A key concern for cultural studies practitioners is the examination of the forces within and through which socially organized people conduct and participate in the construction of their everyday lives.
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