cultural studies 1-12 Flashcards
CULTURE
not monolithic, but dynamic
tensions
multilevel and multidirectional
WILLIAMS
culture as lived culture
shared meanings of a community
ordinary life
working-class (culture is political)
Culturalism
anthropological and historical approach to culture (democracy, ordinariness and socialism)
Democratic edge
approach allowed by culturalism and shared by cultural studies
culture as affordable
CULTURAL MATERIALISM
Culture understood through practices and representations of daily life in the context of the material conditions of their production
Terms by which exploring culture (Williams)
Intistutions (non-academia)
formation (impressionism)
modes of production (bourgeois)
identifications (by art)
reproduction (France, 19th century)
Organization (exhibitions for new emergences)
ARNOLD
High culture and low culture (humanistic approach)
Leavisism
culture is the method through which we discern high and low culture
MARX
historical materialism – reproduction of culture by the historical material conditions (capitalism)
–> structure and superstructure
Culture is political
Marx – culture is the product of the relations of power, it is formed in ideology
Criticism of cultural studies
cultural studies criticises MArxist view because it falls out of economic reductionism
–> there is much more (tensed logics of language, representation and consumption)
STRUCTURALISM
social formation as constituted by complex regularities and structures, concerned with how cultural meaning is produced.
culture=language
ALTHUSSER
social formation as the overdetermination among different instances of a society (econ, politics, ideology)
–> not a totality expressing by culture, econ level only in the last instance (Althusser & HALL)
Althusser and ideology
primary instance of social formation:
-fucntion of constituting objects
- lived experience
- ideology not a misrecognition of real conditions of existence
- reproduction of social formation and power
Criticism of Althusser’s ideology
too functionalis, lack of agency
economic reductionism
epistemological problem
GRAMSCI <3
culture is different streams o meanings, ascendant
popular agency involves build-up forces in civil society for passive revolution
Gramsci and Hegemony
process of making, maintaining and reproducing sets of meanings, contributing to the consolidation of social groups
emodied in the historical bloc of ruling class (power)
unstable, dynamic (not Marx)
Gramsci and Ideology
ideology as lived experience
material phenomenon incising in every-day conditions
social cement
fragmented in the common sense, not only a solid bloc of thought
Gramsci and Common sense
medium to organize our lives
site of ideological conflict
Globalization
modernity and timespace contraction
interconnectiveness – cultural juxtaposing
cultural change
not only one-way from West to the Rest
fear of homogenization –> fragmentation (glocalization)
Fordism
econ. revolution reflected in culture
standardization of production central for mass consumption –> adversitisng and promotion
Post-fordism
1970s overproduction, oil crisis
small batch customization
Language
medium in which cultural menaings are formed and communicated through which we form our knowledge about ourseleves and the world
- values
meanings
knowledge
DE SAUSSURE
semotician and structuralist
study of culture through language
Semiotics
study of signs
Structuralism in langauge
body of thought concerned with structures of signs that allow linguistic performances to be possible
Langue and Parole
langue: abstract sign system and rules of language
Parole: individual speech acts and the everyday usage of language by real speakers
SIGNIFIER; SIGNIFIED = SIGN
Signifier: phonic image of the sign
Signified: idea we associate with the signifier
SIGN: reference to an object in reality – cultrual code determines the relation between signifier and signified
–> becomes naturalized thoug cultural habituation
BARTHES and Structuralism in language#2
cultural myths
interesetd in popular culture
DENOTATION; CONNOTATION = MYTHS
Denotation: descriptive, literal meaning
Connotation: connecting signfiiers to culturl ideas creating a second-level meaning
MYTHS: naturalized is a myth
- polysemic
-not guaranteed , contastation
POST-STRUCTURALISM
critique of structuralism :
- no fixed meanings
- no denotative meaning is fixed
IT IS ABOUT INTERPRETATION –> significance through différence (Derrida)
encoding and decoding
FOUCAULT
knowledge made of regulation of statements
historical condition
discourse
power
knowledge
DISCOURSE
production of knowledge through language which gives bounded meanings to the material objects and social practices.
constructs, defines and produces the objects of knowledge while excluding other forms of reasoning
knowledge
learning how to contend with the world in pusuit of those purposes
Subjects
constructed bydisciplinary discourses (studied historically):
- sciences: subject=object of inquiry
- tech of the self: individuals turn into subjects
- dividing practices: dichotomies (sane-insane)
Question of agency
Question of ethics, agency is allowed by an ethics discourse
2 pahese of power
DISCIPLINARY POWER: centred on the human body, take control over them, rationalize
respect of the rules for fear of the consequences
–> Panopticon
BIOPOWER: power over life and population, to enhance our lives
–> pacemakers, health, family policies
Power
distributed throughout social relations
PRODUCTIVE of knowledge
truth
Archaeology
analysis of historical conditions through which we define knowledge
Genealogy
analysis of the historical evolutions of discourse, power
semiotic excess
a lot of meanings are being produced so that any dominance cannot emerge
News
selecte and constructed representation of reality
Manipulative model
class-dominated society
madia are controlled and manipulated
audience will question
Pulralist model
varies ideological viewpoints and interpretations
audience tastes will determine dominance
Hegemonic model
many strands of meaning but dominated by dominant ideology
indirect manipulation
Econding-decoding
articulation of meanings on different levels
consumption of meanings
Active Audience paradigm
audience in not passive
it can construct opposite meaning
causes of explosion of the pop. culture
- decolonization
- mass communication
- high demographics
- popular culture (music and fashion)
YOUTH
changing social and cultural construct appearing during capitalization period
moratorium between childhhod and adult age
- unitary
- formative stage
- conflictual
SUBCULTURE
part of the counter-culture
against the dominant, but born by it
group of people sharing the same values and maps of meanings
mobile
acts of representation (trhough style)
resistance through rituals (HALL)
renegotiation with dominant culture
bricolaging homologies
double articulation of youth
homologies
set of constitutive relationships between objects and institutions of a certain lived culture
(safety pins, punk)
bricologe
juxtaposition of objects and meanings to create a counter-meaning
Crticisms to subcultures
postmodernists see them as artificial, only dictated by media
SUBJECTIVITY
condition of being a person, and pprocess through which we constitute as subjects
IDENTITY
discoursive description of us
SELF-ID: how we see ourseleves and how we emotionally perceive our descriptions
SOCIAL-ID: forming our identity through mirroring with thers and influenced by how other see us (acculturation)
Essentialism
view that perceives a particular entity as inherently possessing a set of attributes that are fixed and determing (race, femininity)
Anti-Essentialims, Sex & Gender
no entity is fixed and constructed, no universal attributes, but given by the context.
Sex: biological attributes
Gender: constructed by culture
HALL and the SUBJECT
ENLIGHTENMENT SUBJ.
fully centred, unified individual
cartesian dualism : body and mind (je pense donc je suis)
HALL and the SUBJECT
SOCIOLOGICAL SUBJ.
formed through interaction with others,
always unified and one
HALL and the SUBJECT
POST-MODERN SUBJ.
fragmented and shifting, multiple and contradictory identities
5 major shifts leading to the decentred subject
- marxism and historical materialism
- psychoanalysis and Freud
-Feminism and QUEER THEORY - Language
- FOUCAULT with DOCILE BODIES as discoursively produced by disciplinary tech.
DOCILE BODIES
subjected, tranformed and improved through disciplinary tech and tech of the self.
it is the roduct of hisory and power
FEMINISM
sex is a fundamental axis of social organization which has subordinated women to men
1st wave of feminism
19th - 20th century
right to vote - suffragettes
equal rights
but binary division
2nd wave of feminism
60s - 70s
cultural and political gender role - politicized
existentialism with De Beauvoir - no essence before existence
3rd wave of feminism
90s
gender and sex centred universal claims
against 2nd wave “white” feminsim
Race and RACIALISATION
race is the alleged biological and physical characteristics used to rank racialized groups of hierarchy adn subordinate them
social construction and not a universal biological category
symbolized through power structures
essentialist view
IMAGINED COMMUNITY - ANDERSON
all communities larger than a village is immagined
NATION
- limited: there are finite and elastic boundaries
- sovereign: Enlightenment and Revolution destroyed legitimacy of divine in politics
- community deep horizontal comradeship
2 pahese of power
DISCIPLINARY POWER: centred on the human body, take control over them, rationalize
respect of the rules for fear of the consequences
–> Panopticon
BIOPOWER: power over life and population, to enhance our lives
–> pacemakers, health, family policies
DIGITAL DIVIDE
inequalities in the digital era
mental, skill, usage access issues for someone
Digital dualism
Internet and digital world could be either utopian or dystopian
finlter bubbles
alters the way we encounter information online
is a unique universe built on our preferences (cookies)
Information overload
our world is saturated by media, and our abilities to analyse it is rising (big data)
CONVERGENCE CULTURE
tech, industry and media convergences
flow of content across multiple media platforms, cooperation between industries
CYBERSPACE
spatial metaphor to indicate the place in which electronic devices and digital communications occur
CYBERDEMOCRACY
idea that the digital media could contribute to democratic processes, and to be spaces for democratic participation.
corporate colonization of the cyperspace
digiatl capitalism, internet dominated by commercial interests
example of meta
INFORMATION SOCIETY
society in which info is the main commodity of the post-industrial economy
customized production
SPACE
social construct
dynamic
multiple
sociospatiality
essential component of social organization rather than an empty area
Space VS. Place
Space: absence-presence dichotomy
Place: human experience, memory and identity
Privatization of public space
inability to fund public space maintainance
fear for crimes
leisure industries
Global city theory
analyse the restructuring of urban space
dominated by realtively small number of urban centres
controll and command for dispersed set of economic activities
- global capital
- trade and finance
- telecommunication
Post-Modern city
summative depiction of major changes in the last quarter of the century tking place in the cities
- fordist to post fordist production
- globalization
- decentralization (patchwork)
- social fragmentation –> polarization and segregation
- carceral cities
- hyperreality (surveillance)
