Culture is not a thing or even a system: it's a set of transactions, processes, mutations, practices, technologies, institutions, out of which things and events (such as movies, poems or world wrestling bouts) are produced, to be experienced, lived out and given meaning and value to in different ways within the unsystematic network of differences and mutations from which they emerged to start with.... For cultural studies today, cultural objects are simultaneously 'texts' (that is, they have meaning) and events and experiences, produced out of, and thrown back into, a social force field constituted unevenly by power flows, status hierarchies and opportunities for many kinds of transportation, identification and pleasure. they are also social institutions, some based in the state, others in the market or in so-called civil society. (6)
The first characteristic feature of cultural studies is that it is...an engaged study of culture.... The second ideal feature of cultural studies...is that it ought to be self-reflective. (9-10)
Entertainment is said to be the USA's biggest export now. (14)
In enterprise culture, cultural industries are routinely regarded as economic contributors, as employers, as attractors of tourism and business.... Culture is regarded as a means through which governments can manage different communal values and traditions in society.... (16-17)
Key terms to define and keep in mind:
- Entrepreneurialism and enterprise culture
- Cultural materialism (Williams)
- Hegemony (Gramsci)
- Ideology (Althusser)
- Representation
- Everyday life (de Certeau)
- Base/superstructure theory of culture (Marxism)
- Postmarxism
- The subject; subject-positions; identity
1 comment:
I need to get the book for a closer look at this chapter. It was not part of my initial list of reading, but it could be very useful.
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