Five
Types of Cultural Studies
Introduction-
Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary
study. According to Patrick Brantlinger, it is not “a tightly coherent, unified
movement with fixed agenda but a loosely coherent group of tendencies, issues,
and questions.”
Click here to view the blog on the
overview of Cultural Studies.
Wilfred L. Guerin in his collaborative work 'A
Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature' describes five types of
Cultural Studies.
• British Cultural Materialism
Britain
has a long tradition of Cultural Materialism. The first discussion of ‘culture’
with reference to high or elite culture was done by Matthew Arnold in his work ‘Culture
and Anarchy’ in 1869. Cultural Materialism can be said to have begun in and
around the 1950s with the work of F. R. Leavis which was influenced by Matthew
Arnold’s analysis of bourgeois culture. In this way, this represented the Marxist
ideology and power hegemony. Raymond Williams talks about the attributes of the working-class and elite class. As Williams memorably states:
“There
are no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses.”
British Cultural Materialism
basically focused on the problems of cultural hegemony. It was interesting in
the ways to look at relations of dominations which are hardly visible. The
understanding of the theory is based on the observation of Williams on “hegemony”-
“a sense of reality for most
people…. Beyond which it is very difficult for most members of society to move”
(Marxism and Literature)
But the people are not
always victims of hegemony; they sometimes possess the power to change it. Althusser’s
insisting remarks are noteworthy which said that ideology was ultimately in
control of the people-
“the main function of ideology is
to reproduce the society's existing relations of production, and that that
function is even carried out in literary texts."
Ideological State Apparatus as
mentioned by Louis Althusser and Hegemony by Antonio Gramsci who were the New
Left, laid the foundations of Cultural Materialism in Britain.
Michael Foucault studied HOW a discourse emerged rather than WHAT it
is or was. From Foucault, new historicists developed the idea of a broad
"totalizing" function of culture observable in its literary texts,
which Foucault called the “episteme”. Foucault’s main theme was– the widespread
complicity of victims with the systems of power that oppress them. It is not a
question of either patronizing this group or imposing one’s own cultural standards
on them, but of recognizing the systemic constraints within which they construct
their forms of cultural coping and how unemancipative these can be. Additionally,
history is a form of social oppression.
New Historicism and Laputa-
As observed by Wilfred,
The floating physical structure of Laputa is like a uterus and vagina; Gulliver and the Laputians are able to enter this cavity at will and control not only the movements of the lodestone and island, but also the entire society. As Bruce remarks, "It is this which engenders the name of the island: in a paradigmatic instance of misogyny, the achievement of male control over female body itself renders that body the whore: laputa"
In "A Voyage to Laputa," control of women has to mean control of their discourse as well as their sexuality, reflecting the contemporary debates of Swift's day. (Critical Approaches to Literature, page 283)
This way, Swift portrayed the actual reality of his time with which the very notion of man looking at a woman can be observed. The way female identity is portrayed with their characteristics including their body is what stays with the work.
Modernism and Postmodernism
The movement called Modernism was a reaction against the very idea of Victorian time and the major thing was its morality. This was experimented with the narrative elements like point of view, stream of consciousness.
Postmodernism as a rationalist movement deconstructed the set notions of the the previous movement that is the modern movement.
New Historicism and Laputa-
As observed by Wilfred,
The floating physical structure of Laputa is like a uterus and vagina; Gulliver and the Laputians are able to enter this cavity at will and control not only the movements of the lodestone and island, but also the entire society. As Bruce remarks, "It is this which engenders the name of the island: in a paradigmatic instance of misogyny, the achievement of male control over female body itself renders that body the whore: laputa"
In "A Voyage to Laputa," control of women has to mean control of their discourse as well as their sexuality, reflecting the contemporary debates of Swift's day. (Critical Approaches to Literature, page 283)
This way, Swift portrayed the actual reality of his time with which the very notion of man looking at a woman can be observed. The way female identity is portrayed with their characteristics including their body is what stays with the work.
Modernism and Postmodernism
The movement called Modernism was a reaction against the very idea of Victorian time and the major thing was its morality. This was experimented with the narrative elements like point of view, stream of consciousness.
Postmodernism as a rationalist movement deconstructed the set notions of the the previous movement that is the modern movement.
Thank you.
Helpful ma'am
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