Paper :8 What is cultural study?

Name : Jayshree Kunchala
Class : M.A.,Part -1 ,Sem -2
Roll No : 12
Paper : 8
Paper name : The Cultural Studies
Submitted To : Maharaja shri Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University.

 

What is a “cultural Studies”?

A college class on the American novel is reading Alice Walker’s The color Purple (1982). The identifies African American Literary and cultural sources and describes the books multilayered narrative structure moving on to a brief review of its feminist critique of American gender and racial attitudes. Students and professor discuss these various approaches, analyzing key passages in the novel.
A continuous voice in the back of the room”well i just want know what a serious film was doing with oprahwinfrey in it”. This is quickly answered by another student,Dude,she dose huge a book club on her show class members respondes to this points examinig interrelationship among race ,gender ,populer culture’s the media and literature.
Cultural studies approaches generally share four goals
Frist cultural studies transcend the confines of a dicipline such as literary criticism or history. Praticed in such jornals as critical inquiry. Reprasentation and boundary 2.culturalstudies involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of a text for example,italian opera,a latino telenovela the architectural style of prisons,body piercing and drawing conclusion abot the changes in textual phenomena over time.cultural studies is note nesessary about literature in the traditional sense or even about art. in their introduction to cultural studes,editors lowrence Grossberg,cary nelson and paula treichler emphasize that they intellectual promise of cultural studise lise in its attempts to cut across diverse social and political interests and and address many of the struggles with in the current scene’’.
Intellectual works are note lirnited by their own “Dorders” as single texts, historical problems or disciplines and the critics own personal connections to what is being analyzed may also be described. Henry Giroux and other write in their Dalhousie review manifesto that cultural studies practitioners are ‘resisting intellectuals’ who see what they do as “an emancipator project” because it erodes the traditional disciplinary divisions in most institutions of higher education for students this sometimes means that a professor might make his or her political views part of the instruction which of course can lead to problems. But this kind of criticism like feminism is an engaged rather that a detached activity.
Second cultural studies in politically engaged cultural critics see themselves as “oppositional” not only within their own disciples but to many of the power structures of society at large. They question inequalities within power structures and seek to discover. Models for restructuring relationships among dominant and “minority “or “subaltern” discourses.Besause meaning and individual subjectivity are culturally constructed they can thus 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 relocation of aesthetics and culture from ideal realms of taste and sensibility into the arena of a whole society’s everyday life as it is constructed.
A third cultural study denies the separation of “high” and “low” or elite or popular culture. You might hear someone remark at the symphony or at an art museum: “I came here to gate a little culture”. Being a “cultured” person used to mean being a acquainted with “highbrow “art and intellectual pursuits. But isn’t culture used to be found with a pair of tickets to a rock concert? Cultural critics today work to transfer the term culture to include mass culture weather popular folk or urban. Following theorists Jean Baundriland and Andreas Hussein, cultural critics argues that after word war 2 the distinctions among Hugh low and mass culture collapsed and they cite other theorists such as Pierre Bourirdieu and Dick Hebdige on how “good taste” often only reflects prevailing social, economic and political power bases. For example ,the image of India that were circulated during the colonial rule of the British raj by writers like Rudyard Kipling seem innocent but reveal an entrenched imperialist argument for white superiority and world wide domination of ther races especially Asian. But race along was not issue for the British raj money was also deciding factor. Thus drawing also upon the ideas of French historian Michel de certeau cultural critics examine “the practice of everyday life” studying literature as an anthropologist would as a phenomenon of culture including a cultures economy. Rather than determining which are the best work produced cultural critic described what is produced and how various productions relate to one another .They aim to reveal the political economic reasons way a certain cultural product is more valued at certain time than others.

Cultural Studies

In Cultural Studies, 'culture' is understood very broadly, but with a strong emphasis on local everyday life. Cultural Studies does not follow traditional distinctions between 'high' and 'low' culture; a Radiohead video becomes a significant cultural text alongside, say, a classical opera. Cultural Studies looks at many cultural forms which have often been ignored by universities: advertising, media, music, fashion, sport and leisure are shown to be extremely powerful political forces in shaping our societies and our identities.
Cultural Studies means studying culture - but from particular angles
A lot of attention is paid to contemporary theories of culture, including questions of how culture is produced, how we use and interpret culture, how culture can be preserved, destroyed, or changed, how our sense of identity merges with our culture, and what is happening to culture in the new world of commodity circulation, communications and information technologies, and globalisation.
'Culture' is understood in a very broad sense, including all the social processes of everyday life. Cultural Studies questions traditional distinctions between 'high' and 'low' culture, and shows that everyday life may be the object of complex and significant analysis. Many cultural forms which have often been ignored by universities become prominent here: advertising, media, music, fashion, sport and leisure are shown to be extremely powerful political forces in shaping our societies and our identities.
In Australian, American, and European universities where Cultural Studies has developed hugely in the last two decades, one of its central strengths is seen to be its cross-disciplinarity, that is, the way that it draws on the perspectives, methods, and theories of numerous fields of study. The idea is not to reduce culture to something simple and unified, but to appreciate its complexity. The programme being developed at Canterbury draws on more than fifteen participating programmes-most of the Faculty of Arts!
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 this 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 explores larger layers of significance and meaning in the world because it reveals aspects of the familiar that are hidden, confusing and meaningful.” – Alex (Student)
Many students take advantage of the university’s Go Global program to study outside of Canada, and we are currently developing Experiential Learning options so that students can gain valuable experience with local non-profits and community organizations