Introduction to Cultural Theories

Dr. Melanie Loidolt

SS 2013 WED 15.00 16.30, HS D Campus

ORGANISATIONAL INFO

TUTORIAL BY ELISABETH SCHOBER Introductory Words by our Tutor Thur. 16-18 Unterrichtsrraum Please join the tutorial if you have time!!! Highly recommendable!!!! FINAL WRITTEN EXAM 1st sitting: JULY 3, 2013 There are 2-3 more sittings (will be announced at the end of the semester) TODAYS PLAN:
What is Cultural Studies? Course schedule

READING AND SECONDARY SOURCES

Moodle-platform: ppts and notes will be provided here A Handapparat will be provided in the Anglistik-library: includes CT studies and also mastercopies
full access about March 23 supportive secondary sources; reading very informative and highly recommended (but optional): texts and page numbers will be indicated on ppt

TODAYS PLAN

What is Cultural Studies and Theories ?

Note CS uses the singular because it includes many disciplines

Introduction to the Course-Schedule for SS 2013

CULTURAL STUDIES

Term coined by Richard Hoggart in 1964 when he founded Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies = CCCS /Birmingham
CS in Britain: overtly political, left-wing views, and criticisms of popular culture as 'capitalist' mass culture CS in US: a pragmatic, liberal-pluralist tradition, subjective side of audience reactions to and uses of mass culture

What does CS analyse?

Cultural studies is highly INTERDISCIPLINARY it combines::

social theory, political theory, history, philosophy, psychoanalysis. literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, communication studies, political economy, art history/criticism.
CS analyses cultural phenomena and the structure of cultural identity and questions it

CS uses therefore the critera of: gender/sexual orientation, class ethnicity (race) religion nationality

CULTURE as SOCIAL PRACTICE is NOT something an individual owns but: social process historical reservoir cultural representations
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THE MEANING OF TEXT IN CS and CT

Text does not only refer

to language, but also to images or visual and virtual media AS text. !!! CULTURE ITSELF IS READ AS TEXT !!!

QUESTIONS POSED IN CT & CS:

How is culture discussed and how is it questioned?
How do culture and social structure relate?

Which methods are useful for the analysis of culture?

How are signifying practices/creation of meaning organized in different cultures? How does culture form what and who we are?
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Major Theories and Methods of CS:

The Anthropological & Marxist Cultural Materialist Concept The Semiotic Concept of culture (signs & signification) The Discursive Concept (influence of history, institutions in power) The Psychoanalytical Concept (the gaze; modes of cultural initiation) Film Studies The Postmodern Concept (visual studies and consumerism) Feminist, Gender, Queer, and Masculinity Studies Performance Theory Theories on Race and Ethnicity Postcolonial Theories Theories on Subcultures Technoculture & Cyberstudies Posthuman Studies New Historicism (often in context with Cultural Materialism)

. Several other fields have developed .. 9

COURSE SCHEDULE INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL THEORIES SS 2013

Lecture 1 (13.3.) General Introduction -What is Culture? What is Cultural Theory (CT)? Introduction the Cultural Studies (CS). -Early Theories on Culture: Arnold, Leavis, Hoggart, Williams Lectures 2-6: CULTURE, MEANING, KNOWLEDGE & REPRESENTATION: THE LINGUISTIC TURN (Semiotic, Discursive, Psychoanalytic - Approaches to Culture as Text) Lecture 2 (20.3.) 1. Culture and Representation - What is Representation in CT?: Hall, Struken & Cartwright 2. STRUCTURALISM The Semiotic Approach to Culture: Theories by Saussure (signifier/signified) and Barthes (denotation, connotation, myth) EASTER HOLIDAYS = NO CLASS ON MARCH 27 and APRIL 3 Lecture 3 (10.4.) 1.) Repetition: Semiotic Approach 2.) Culture, Ideology and Power - Marxism and CT/CS Socialist Theories - Birmingham Center of CS - Ideology in Marx, Althusser, Gramsci Lecture 4 (17.4.) 1.)Repetition of Semiotic Theory + Hall (encode, decode, reading positions) 2.) POSTSTRUCTURALISM The Discursive Approach to Culture: Differences Structuralism - Poststructuralism Introduction to Theories by Foucault

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Lecture 5 (24.4.) POSTSTRUCTURALISM THE DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO CULTURE: 1.) Theories by Foucault (power-discourses: Panopticon the Prison and Surveillance, Charcot:Representations of Madness and Hysteria) 2.) Derrida and Deconstruction (critique of the Enlightenment dogmas: binarisms, difference) 3.) Theories on Subjectivity and Identity MAY 1 --- NO CLASS / HOLIDAY

Lecture 6 (8.5.) THE PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH TO CULTURE: 1.)Theories by Freud (Oedipal Model) and Lacan (Imaginary, Symbolic, Real, the Gaze) 2.) Psychoanalysis Applied in Film Theories: Mulvey, Baudry Lectures 7-13: SITES OF CULTURAL STUDIES: CULTURAL THEORY APPLIED

Lecture 7 (15.5.) CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE OTHER AND CULTURAL ICONS 1.)Sex, Gender, Identity: Definitions & Models of Thinking / Overview Feminist Theories 2.)Simone deBeauvoir: The Second Sex Construction & Representation of Woman as the Other & Myths of Femininity 3.)Constructions of Cultural Icons of Maternity and Sexuality

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Lecture 8 (22.5.) POSTSTRUCTURALISM FEMINIST AND GENDER THEORIES 1.) FEMINIST THEORIES: Perspectives on the Body and Culture French Feminist Poststructuralism: The Female Body & Language in Patriarchal Culture 2.) GENDER STUDIES, QUEER STUDIES: Performance Theory Judith Butler and Gender Trouble: Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions of Culturally Gendered Identities Illustration by movie: STAGE BEAUTY date of screening will be announced soon Lecture 9 (MAY 29) TECHNOLOGIES OF IDENTITY AND GENDER: CYBERFEMINISM AND TECHNOCULTURE Repetiton or Performance and Queer Theory (Butler) 1.) Haraway: Cyborg Manifesto 2.) Analysis of Lara Croft in the perspective of various cultural theories 3.) Masculinity Studies: Hall, Brod, Kauffman (representations of masculinity) Lecture 10 (JUNE 5) RACE AND ETHNICITY: Cultural Constructions of Whiteness and Blackness 1.)Clarfication of terms Identity and Ethnicity, relation to Gender Studies 2.) Representations of Blacks as the Other: Hall Examples Additional: ( if time: Black Feminism: bell hooks) - Patti Smith Woman as the Nigger of the World American Indian / White literary/cinematic representations: The Last of the Mohicans vs. Dead Man Lecture 11 (JUNE 12) CAN THE SUBALTERN SPEAK?: POSTCOLONIAL THEORIES The Intervention of the Other Voice(s) 1.) ORIENTALISM: Theories by Said and McKenzie 2.) POSTCOLONIAL THEORIES British/India Introduction to postcolonial theories by Bhaba (very briefly perhaps: Spivak) 12

Lecture 12 (JUNE 19) POSTMODERNISM AND POP(ULAR) CULTURE: VISUAL CULTURE, CONSUMERISM & SIMULATED REALITIES
1.)Popular Culture, Visual Culture and postmodernity: Baudrillard (simulacra, hyperreality) 2.) Methods of postmodernist representation (e.g. bricolage, parody, interrogations of the culturally iconic) 3.) Consumerism and identity

Ad popular culture and postmodernist practices : Analysis of The Simpsons

Lecture 13 (JUNE 26)

MASS CULTURE VERSUS SUBCULTURES 1.)What is a Subculture? Subcultural Theory (criteria of youth, gender, class, ethnicity)/Hebidge; Gelder 2.)Overview examples for subcultures & subcultural capital (Thornton) 3.) Discussion of subculture-cultural development process of meaning (Gothic, Punk, Hippie, Goa)

Ad subculture: Analysis of Allen Ginsberghs Howl (Beat Generation)

Full reading by Ginsbergh himself on YouTube full text will be provided in handapparat and online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p_kKhRmRkM

FINAL EXAM JULY 3: first sitting Further dates for exams will be announced (September 2013 // ? November 2013 and/or ? January 2014 ?)

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ILLUSTRATION OF JUDITH BUTLERS GENDER & QUEER THEORY ON PERFORMATIVTY WITH:

STAGE BEAUTY
(Director: Richard Eyre; 2004) Preview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_-CzU1cqbo

DATE OF MOVIE-SESSION WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON

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THE SIMPSONS
Pop(ular) Culture and Postmodernist Practices
(e.g. parody, bricolage)
Homer: Oh Marge, cartoons dont have any deep meaning, theyre just stupid drawings to give you a cheap laugh!

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RECOMMENDED SUPPORTIVE READING FOR THE LECTURE-SCRIPTS (provided in the Anglistik-Handapparat, set up latest March 22)
On the various ppts for the lectures, special references to chapters & page-numbers will be added
Please DO NOT take the books from the library the Handappart should be accessible to all students at all times!! Please DO NOT take mastercopies at home = copy all you need in the library!!!

MAJOR REFERENCE WORKS (to issues dealt with in class this semester )
Struken, Marita & Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking. (2001)

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies. Theory & Practice. (2000)

Longhurst, Brian. Introducing Cultural Studies. (2008) Hall,Stuart. Representation. Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices. (1992)

Website Melanie Loidolt: Beauvoir, French Feminism http://homepage.univie.ac.at/melanie.feratova-loidolt

A few more reference works might be added to the Handappart: if so, you will be informed in class.
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Recommended Additional Reading

For those interested ! not manatory, but hopefully inspirational!
All articles below taken from: Ciglar-Zanic, Janja, Damir Kalogiera, and Jasna Jemersic (eds.). Cross-Cultural Challenges (Conference Proceedings Zagreb). The British Council Croatia, 1998. Mastercopies will be provided in the Anglistik library

AD LECTURE 5: DECONSTRUCTION AND DISCOURSE Libora, Indruchova. Theories on Ideology, Discourse, and Gender in the Czech Context. Poirier, Francois. The Astonishing Worlds We Set up for Others to Live in or, Locating Cultures in Relation One the Other. Ad LECTURE 8 - GENDER THEORIES Carlson, Marvin. What is Performance? http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic235750.files/Peformance_Studies.pdf AD LECTURE 9 CYBER-AND TECHNOCULTURE Safran, Jasenka. Cultural Identity in Cyberspace: What is the Message of the Medium.
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