Session 1

Question 1

What are the problems with “Cultural Studies”?

Answer 1

1. No agreement on meaning of the term
2. No agreement on necessity of the discipline
3. No agreement on subject matter
4. Incoherent terminology

Question 2

What are the three major perspectives on “Cultural Studies” discussed in the lecture?

Answer 2

1. Kulturwissenschaften
2. Kulturwissenschaft
3. Cultural Studies

Question 3

What is the Basic Idea of the “Kulturwissenschaften” perspective?

Answer 3

Cultural studies is an additional aspect of traditional discipline. It is part of their disciplines providing them with the cultural context of their subject matter.

Question 4

What are the problems of the “Kulturwissenschaften” approach?

Answer 4

1. Lack of common terminology/frame of reference (Culture is a vast field which requires many questions being asked…The approach taken can vary based on interest)
2. No integrated treatment of complex cultural phenomena (The disciplines didn’t talk to each other)

Question 5

What is the basic idea of the “Kulturwissenschaft” approach?

Answer 5

They thought there should be an independent field of study that provides a common ground for traditional disciplines without
making them superfluous. (Common terminology etc.)

Question 6

What are the problems of the “Kulturwissenschaft” approach?

Answer 6

1. Theoretical “overkill”
2. Danger of Dilettantism

Question 7

What does the “Cultural Studies” approach refer to?

Answer 7

In the English speaking world it very often refers to what was done at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies which existed from 1964 to 2002. This was a decidedly leftist endeavour.

Question 8

What is the Basic Idea of the “Cultural Studies” approach?

Answer 8

It was a supposed to be a new discipline (on the same level as traditional disciplines) covering hitherto neglected forms of culture.
They claimed that what we call culture is an elitist phenomenon. Well into the 1980s Culture was decided by “the elites”. According to this approach Cultural Studies should study what people do not what they should do.)

Question 9

What was the goal of the “Cultural Studies” approach?

Answer 9

The emancipation of the working class (by focusing on neglected forms of culture)

Question 10

What are the problems of the “Cultural Studies” approach?

Answer 10

1. Blurrs the difference between high and low culture (Why is this relevant?)
2. Political propaganda disguised as scholarship (It confuses working-class culture with Kulturindustrie)

Question 11

From which perspective is Cultural Studies approached within the lecture?

Answer 11

Cultural studies within this lecture will be understood as an umbrella term of the three terms. But it focuses on the “Kulturwissenschaft und Birmingham Cultural Studies approach.

Question 12

What is the issue when asking “What is Culture?”?

Answer 12

We still don’t understand what the common demoninator of Culture is.

Question 13

What is the Definition of Culture according to the Kulturwissenschaften approach?

Answer 13

“Kultur besteht nicht nur aus sprachlichen Zeichen […], sondern sie umfasst zumindest auch:
1. Institutionen und Rituale (soziale Kultur),
2. Artefakte und Fertigkeiten (materiale Kultur),
3. Mentefakte und Konventionen (mentale Kultur),”

Traditionally in the Kulturwissenschaften approach the fields of human studies were attributed to the three dimensions.

Question 14

What are the aspects of the definitions of Culture according to the Kulturwissenschaften approach?

Answer 14

1. Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture.
2. An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social
   learning.
3. The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.

Question 15

What is the focus of the “Kulturwissenschaft” approach?

Answer 15

How the (in the Kulturwissenschaften approach defined) dimensions of culture interact with each other.

Question 16

What does Cultural Studies attempt?

Answer 16

It attempts to overcome the isolated focus on one of those dimensions in traditional disciplines.

Question 17

What Definition of Culture was kept in the lecture?

Answer 17

Culture is a complex network of mental, social, and material phenomena characteristic for groups of different sizes.

Question 18

What is the most challenging question in cultural studies?

Answer 18

In which mode the three dimensions of culture interact among one another.

Question 19

What are the implications of the new cultural studies approach?

Answer 19

1. Literary Scholarship has much to offer to and much to gain from Cultural Studies (It is both a product of and about culture[According to New Criticism we understand culture through artists]).
2. The Cultural Studies approach in Literary Scholarship stands in extreme opposition to more traditional, text-centred approaches
3. Cultural Studies is a provocation of individualistic and idealistic world-views (Are we really free-thinking and free-acting individuals?).
4. That’s why Cultural Studies always have a political and a philosophical dimension.

Question 20

What do “Culturally Shared Worldviews” refer to?

Answer 20

Members of the same (sub-)culture tend to see the world simarly to a higher degree than members of different cultures.

Question 21

Which question is cultural studies trying to answer?

Answer 21

How can we have culturally shared worldviews, given that it’s the same world we all see and a very similar cognitive system we see it with?

Question 22

Which problem are Marxism and German Idealism trying to solve?

Answer 22

How do we know that the things in our heads mirror the world outside?