Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies- Stuart Hall

the following write up on Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies is by Rinu Dina John

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Stuart Hall is one of the most influential figures in cultural studies. He was part of the time when cultural studies was originated as an academic discourse or discipline. In this essay he questions the seriousness with which this discourse is engaged with a personal version of the history of the cultural studies.

According to Hall cultural studies emerged as a disciple out of the 1950s disintegration of classical Marxism and its thesis that the economic base has a determining effect on the cultural superstructure. He speaks of two interruptions that the trajectories of cultural studies faced namely feminism and racism. But what is stable in cultural studies is the conjunctional knowledge based on the idea of Gramsci. It means knowledge situated in and applicable to, specific and immediate political/historical circumstances. In addition, the awareness that the structure of representations which forms culture’s alphabet and grammar are instruments of social power requiring critical examination. What he does is to trace the history of the development of cultural studies. He does it by referring to some theoretical legacies, namely the New Left and some theoretical moments, namely Racism and Feminism

According to Hall cultural studies has a discursive formation in Foucault’s sense. It means it has no single origin. It is a multiple discourse and has many histories. It is always a set of unstable formation. It has ‘centre’ only in quotation. It has many trajectories. It does not mean it is not a organised or policed disciplinary area. It means cultural studies refuse to be a meta narrative. It is a project that is open to that which it does not know. But at the same time just because there is no fixed centre doesn’t mean that there is no possibility of taking a particular position and arguing for it. He doesn’t believe that knowledge is close but he believes in arbitrary closure. This is what allows for politics. Every practice that intends to make a difference in the world should have some points of difference or distinction. It is the question of positionalities. But we should always keep in mind that positions are never absolute or final.

Cultural studies in the academies of the advanced capitalist countries have transformed the object of studies in the humanities. In particular, in English departments, cultural studies has challenged the predominance of the governing categories of literary studies (the "canon," the homogeneous "period," the formal properties of genre, the literary object as autonomous and self-contained) in the interest of producing "readings" of all texts of culture and inquiring into the reproduction of subjectivities. To this end, pressure has been placed on disciplinary boundaries, the methods which police these boundaries, and modes of interpretation and critique have been developed which bring, for example, "economics" and "politics" to bear on the formal properties of texts. In addition, the lines between "high culture" and "mass culture" have been relativized, making it possible to address texts in terms of their social effectivity rather than their "inherent" literary, philosophical or other values.

He speaks of one of the important theoretical legacies part of the origin of cultural studies namely the emergence of New Left in Britain with the disintegration of classical Marxism. Classical Marxist thesis was that economic base has a determining effect on the cultural superstructure. Classical Marxism was mainly engaged with power, capital, exploitation etc. and did not talk about the objective cultural studies such as culture, ideology, language, the symbolic etc.

He also speaks of certain movements that provoke theoretical movements. There were two such movements in relation to cultural studies. They are racism and feminism. These two movements were considered as interruptions that the cultural studies faced. These interruptions led to new theoretical formulations within cultural studies. These interruptions are good.

An Intelligent Critic's Guide to Indian Cinema- Ashish Nandy

the following write up on An Intelligent Critic's Guide to Indian Cinema is by Abhay Shetty

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1. The Cultural Matrix of the popular film.

The writer Ashish Nandy makes a clear distinction on how the cultural capital of Indian is much influenced by the middle class of the urban India be it cinema, cricket or anyother forms of entertainment, Nandy goes on explaining that the urban middle class politics which is only a part compared to the rest of the Indian rural population has a mojor influences in giving momentum to these areas of entertainment. " Urban India also would continue to provide a critical mass sustaining a level of intellectual activity and creative initiative difficult or impossible to achieve in smaller Third World societies ". Claiming that these urban middle class are the intellectual powers which sustain and encourage creative initiations which is assumed to be impossible by the third world countries. Thanks to its political presence compared to the other third world countries which have in compare provided to its westernized bourgeoisie." These classes have often provided the baseline for a critique of modernity as well as of traditions". Thinker and social reformers of Ninteenth and twetieth century of India have all provided for such a intellectual growth to the middle class in India irrespective of the social background of these reformers like Rabindranath Tagore , Bankmchandra Chattopadhyay, Gandhi and Bhimrao Ambedkar. " They Shared an Idiom and culture", and this is because they shared the cultural intellectual together irrespective of their social backdrop. Intellectuals or creative individuals from cinema , art and literature are forming a definite culture that mediates between the classical and the non-classical or folk, and between West and East. Nandy terms another set of the divients of the culture as Low-brow middle class for they 'vulgate' the new concepts of ethics and conciousness into the masses. Stating them to be 'underground' which has taken a legitamate popular form, threatening the high culture of the middle class.

The need for this new self assertion of the low -brow is because " The accelerating process of social change in India uprooted increasing number of people from their folk traditions".For the middle class it was their relatibility to the sanskrit tradition and for the upper class it was westernized concepts so the low-brow needed a self assertion of their culture to mingle in this melting pot of the urban. And this clash of the middle class and the low brow was in a sense resolved with the with a new fromation of expression " a middle -brow medium of self expression to serve as a new urban folk expression and a popular form of classicism". Thus a new mass culture formed. The new culture thus formed has certain traits of its own. The first one being including the elemants of the low-brow dominant and laying of the western high cultuer which was once prominant in the Indian Middle class culture. But the new mass culture doesnt reject the classical culture but inly undeplays it .Secondly there is a sense of prdictability and readability in the then popular culture of the urban middle class. Where as the urban mass culture now is purely on the creativity of the producer that cares to stimulate the sensibility of the masses. The third is that popular culture plays a mediatory rle between the classical and the folk , modern and tradition which is fragmented geograohically .where as in mass culture it has a very pan india effect reaching out to people through out the nation. The fouth being that the mass culture is not being critical of the of the current political culture and political sterotypes.where as the popular middle class culture relies on concepts such as sanity, maturity and normality .

Thus leading us to the common features and differences between art films, middle-brow cinema and commercial cinema . "All three depend on middle class for legitamacy and critical acclaim" by stating so Nandy also give middle class a certain power fram or structure to value all the three bases of cinema. Firstly according to the writer the commercial films center around the value system of the society basing itself on subtle criticizm of society but yet ahdering to the larger social mores and values. Thus criticising the middle class values to too. Where as art cinema or high-brow cinema writer terms it give a ruthless criticism of the social potholes and and gives a deep analysis of cinema as such. Where as the middle bro cinema fails to have to arty face of the high brow cinema but constantly try to achieve the artiness among their cinema. Which carries on the tradition od "good popular cinema".The writer goes on making such distinctions from one genre of cinema to the other.

2. Beyond Oriental Despotism

Politics and femininity in Satyajit Ray

In this section the writer shows how in Satyajit Ray's movie Shatranj how the west and the east is percieved and the western notions of Masculinities are projected as against that of eastern notions of femininity.The femininity is only potrayed at the expense of masculinity.

3. Shyam Benegal and the case of missing Krsna

Nandy potrays how the Indian epics do not have Hero in sense of the greek myths. but also touches upon where the intellectuals felt a need for a Karna to be potrayed as a hero in the curret day scenario.

4. The Double in Commercial Films

The use of double role as an alter ego is being projected to that of an fight between the eastern and the western concepts of the double, in reference to main stream Indian cinema.

5. Cultural Spaces and Aesthetic Spaces

The art films and the main stream indian movies share different spaces and with respect to their spaces they function accordingly. Nandy also adds on that these spaces should not be interchanged because the masses do not recognise the the aesthetics spaces and only rely on the cultural spaces of the movies or cinema.

Bibilography :

1. Nandy, Ashis; 1995; Intelligent Film Critic’s Guide to Indian Cinema; The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves; New Delhi; OUP; pp 196-236

Cultural Industry Reconsidered -Theodor W. Adorno

the following write up on Culture Industry Reconsidered is by Inchara Ravi

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Culture Industry Reconsidered was written by Theodor W. Adorno, a German philosopher. He was born on September 11, 1903. He belonged to the Frankfurt School of social theory. The Frankfurt School takes its name from the Institute for Social Research established in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923. Adorno along with Max Horkheimer published a book named ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ in 1947. In this book they use the term ‘cultural industry’ for the first time.

In the essay Cultural Industry Reconsidered, Adorno replaces the expression ‘mass culture’ with ‘culture industry'. This is to avoid the popular understanding of mass culture as the culture that arises from the masses. He prefers calling it ‘culture industry’ because of the commodification of the culture forms or artistic objects. He opines that the cultural forms create a means of income for their creators and profit has become more important than the artistic expression. Hence, culture has turned into an industry and the cultural objects are looked at as products. One of the characteristics of cultural industry is that it intentionally integrates both the high and low art.

By referring to the term industry, Adorno does not point to the production process instead he is looking at the ‘standardization of the thing itself’ and to the rationalization of distribution techniques and not strictly to the production process. It is industrial more in a sociological sense, in terms of incorporation of the industrial forms of organization even though nothing is manufactured. He also makes clear the difference between the technique used in cultural industry and the technique used in works of art. In the works of art the technique refers to the formal organization of the object, with its inner logic, where as in cultural industry it refers to the distribution and the mechanical production. Thus technique in cultural industry is external to the object where as in the works of art it is internal. Adorno opines that a work of art is not different than a commercial product in the industrial era.

Adorno says that the masses are secondary and are ‘an appendage of the machinery’ in the cultural industry. He argues that, the culture industry claims to bring order in the chaotic world it provides human being with something like a standard and an orientation, yet the thing that it is claiming to preserve is actually being destroyed. The mass media is supposed to enlighten the mass, to bring about rational thinking and also demystification. But mass media is deceiving people in the name of enlightenment. They are actually controlling the people rather than liberating their thoughts.

The current culture industry acts as if it satisfies the consumers’ need for entertainment, but masks the manner by which these needs are standardized, manipulating the consumers to obsess about its products. A relevant example for Adorno’s view on mass media is cinema and television. Each film is the replica of what has been already done, but people believe it to be different from what has been done before. As a result of this critical thinking, individuality of an object or an idea is lost due to the commodification by the cultural industry.

The essay also makes a reference to Benjamin’s theory of the ‘aura’. It says that the Culture Industry doesn’t have an alternative to the aura. Hence, it is going against its own ideologies. Adorno's concept of culture industry indicates the necessity for rethinking his theory of mass culture.

References

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC20folder/AdornoMassCult.html

EMPIRE, NATION, AND LITERARY TEXT- Susie Tharu and Dr. K. Lalitha

the following write up on Empire, Nation and the Literary Text is by Rekha Kamath

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The essay ''Empire, Nation and the Literary Text'' is a combined effort of Prof. Susie Tharu and Dr. K. Lalitha. By using ''Radhika Santwanam'' (Appeasing Radhika), a classic work of the eighteenth century Telugu poetess ''Muddupalani'' as an example, the authors have attempted to portray the imbalance in the cultural authority during the colonial period, and its changing trends. In the introductory section, the essay reveals the efforts made by Bangalore Nagaratnamma, philanthropist and savant of the twentieth century, in trying to bring back to the public eye the great classic of Muddupalani which had gone unnoticed.

Muddupalani was a courtesan attached to the retinue of Pratapsimha (1739-1763), a Nayaka king of Tanjavur. Traditionally the only women who had an access to scholarship and arts like dancing, music, and literature were courtesans. Many of such women commanded respect for their learning and their accomplishments. One such accomplishment was Muddupalani’s Radhika Santwanam. It consists of 584 poems divided into four sections. The poems are stories involving Radha, Krishna’s aunt, who brings up Ila Devi from childhood and then gets her married to Krishna. The poems are a detail description of Ila Devi’s puberty and her consummation of her marriage with Krishna. In these poems Radha advises Ila Devi how to respond to Krishna’s love-making, and Krishna how to tenderly handle Ila Devi. At a point of time, the poems change course and Radha, unable to bear the pain and grief of her own separation from Krishna, whom she desires herself, breaks down and rages against Krishna for having abandoned her. When Krishna gently appeases her, she is comforted by his loving embrace. This is what gives Muddupalai’s creation its title.

The introduction of the essay shows the serious implications of the efforts made by Bangalore Nagaratnamma in reprinting the classic ''Radhika Satwanam'' (Appeasing Radhika) in 1910, during the reign of the British in India. She did so with a very clear intention of making the classic work of Muddupalani available to the public again. But this resulted in Muddupalani’s work being criticized as obscene and was banned from being printed, published, or even read. Even though the ban was lifted with the winning of Independence, the text didn’t achieve the recognition that it deserved. Radhika Santwanam gives a chance to take a peek into the ideological conjunctures of the last 250 years of Indian critiques.In the sections following the introduction, the authors attempt to "trace the changing political economies of gender, caste and class, serviced in turn by changes in literary taste as well as by altogether new notions of the function of literature and the nature of the literary curriculum."

The third section of the essay elaborates on the accomplishments of courtesans or ganika during Maddupalai’s time. Unlike the non-Muslim women upper caste women of that time, this section of the community got a chance to get well-versed with the literature of various languages including Sanskrit. As the culture of the Thanjavur court grew into a singularly composite one, the national culture also showed signs of miscegenation. The Thanjavur rulers were displaced by a Maratha dynasty and therefore there was a cultural influence too. This also showed changehad an impact in Muddupalani’s writings. Verses and secular prose narratives started replacing the poems. But what gave Muddupalani's works their uniqueness were the subversion of the received form. Usually it is the man is the lover and the woman is the loved one. But in Radhika Santwanam the woman's sensuality is at the center. "Legitimation of female desire and its endorsement of a woman's right to pleasure" is what makes Radhika Santwanam a unique classic.

The fourth section of the essay concentrates on the reason for the shift in ideologies. The work that was uncontroversial during its time became totally unacceptable when Bangalore Nagaratnamma brought its reprinted version into the open in 1911, the time when British rule in India was at its peak. The era saw major shifts in political, economic, and social ideologies. Thanjavur lost its relevance as the British started taking over places that were once ruled by Indian rulers. Artists, singers, dancers, especially the women, lost their status in the society and were forced to take up peury and prostitution.

The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception- Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer

the following write up on The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception is by Jaimon Antony

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The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception is an excerpt from the final chapter of critical theorists Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) and Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) Dialectic of Enlightenment. The book is the cornerstone of critical theory and essentially claims that science is irrational and that the Enlightenment is a trick and nothing happened during that time period. Adorno claims that enlightenment was supposed to bring pluralism and demystification but instead society is said to have suffered a major fall as it is corrupted by capitalist industry with exploitative motives. Both Adorno and Hokeimer belong to the Frankfurt school which tried to theorize ‘cultural Industry’ as being controlled by the Capitalist Economy.

Elements

This essay remains a classical denunciation of ‘cultural Industry’. This is a socialist approach to the industrialization of cultural commodities. Adorno and Hokheimer are of the opinion that the transition of the cultural production from the artisanal stage to the industrial stage has made the society lose its capacity to nourish true freedom and Individuality – as well as the ability to represent the real conditions of existence. According to them the modern cultural industry produces standardized goods to satisfy the larger need of the capitalist economy.

Adorno and Horkheimer begin by defining the “culture industry” as an economic union of microcosm and macrocosm in a society of producers and consumers united by work and pleasure whose technology does not extend beyond standardization and mass production. They move through all aspects of popular culture (from their time period)-radio, movies and music- applying the Marxist idea of alienation of labor to the condition of consumers in a post-Enlightenment capitalist society. Horkheimer and Adorno argue that since the Enlightenment popular culture has become a sort of factory, producing standardized cultural goods to manipulate the masses into passivity, which they term the “culture industry”. Horkheimer and Adorno viewed the mass-produced culture as a threat to true or “high” arts. They argue that the “culture industry”, by trying to satisfy the demands of the capitalist economy, deceives the masses, homogenizes culture, and creates false needs.

The role of capitalism is key, “the dependence of the most powerful broadcasting company on the electrical industry, or of the motion picture industry on the banks, is characteristic of the whole sphere, whose individual branches are themselves economically interwoven.” Horkheimer and Adorno claim that the media--advertisements, movies, radio broadcasts--are essentially propaganda used to maintain society’s state of false consciousness; this propaganda hide the reality of domination and oppression of the masses under capitalism.

The essay stresses that culture industry has become so successful that ‘art’ and ‘life’ are no longer wholly separable. The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture Industry and flawless techniques used in the expressions of art duplicate empirical objects in such a way that the consumer can’t really make distinction between what is real and what is unreal. This Idea was later taken up by theorists of postmodernism to reinstate that real life has become indistinguishable from art. while emphasizing the fact that the ‘mass culture’ is a threat to the ‘high art’, Adorno and Horkheimer argue that there can be no more original culture – that there can be no art in modern capitalism.

Observations

Adorno and Hokheimer are too cynical about the ‘cultural Industry’ that they fail to see the opportunities and collective creativity which ‘cultural Industry’ provides for all kinds of Individuals. They become highly pessimistic that they even undermine the Marxist notion that the consumers will be able to overthrow or overcome the capitalist manipulation and deception of the society.

References

· Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press (2002)

· During, Simon. The Cultural Studies Reader. Routledge( 1999 )

· Jameson,Fredric. Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Duke University Press. (1991)

Encoding/Decoding- Stuart Hall

the following is a write up on Encoding/Decoding by Rini Thomas

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In this paper I have tried to attempt my understanding of Stuart Hall’s work. The essay mainly focuses on the process of communication that has been commonly understood by the mass in terms of an encoder, the message and the decoder. Here it is a set pattern where the sender is the authoritative source for the receiver in terms of the sent message. But there is a necessity to rethink and restructure the whole stereotypical notion. The already existing structure is linear in motion and so there needs to be a change in the structure. The way in which Hall looks into is a more valid structure so to speak in a distinctive way. This is a much more sustained approach where the process is structured – production, circulation, distribution/consumption, reproduction. Here the structure has taken an alteration from the already existing one, where, the sent message is taken or understood or interpreted in different ways by different audience. This structure has been adopted or incorporated by Hall from Marx’s Grundrisse and Capital, which shows how this structure sustains a form of passage.

The focus is on meanings and messages in the form of certain vehicles which are encoded and how it is transferred to the various audience. This can be paralleled with “Reader Response Criticism” where the reader becomes the centre focal point. Language forms a completely vital source here as language is cultural based and the meanings are comprehended through language by the mass in various ways. For example a poem like “Telephone Conversation” by Wole Soyinka written by an Afro-American can be understood by an Indian audience through their understanding of the existing oppression by the hegemony in terms of Dalits. “The ‘encoding’ and ‘decoding’, he argues are relatively autonomous and the communicative process is of determinate moments” (p 167). He says raw history cannot be transmitted by a television newscast. For example, a movie in the caliber of Troy is not the literary text itself. It is an offshoot with some changes and the audience views it differently.

Further, Hall in detail elaborates how the television communication process is a labour process through Capital. There are various institutional structures that go into the production of a programme. Hall states that, “Production here constructs the message” (p 167). Figure 1 clearly states how the process takes place. Before the encoding takes place there are certain plans in terms of framing the technical infrastructure, relations of production and framework of knowledge which is encoded (meaning structures 1) then transferred to a programme as a meaningful discourse which is then decoded (meaning structures 2) and then interpreted into various technical infrastructures, relations of production and frameworks of knowledge. He also focuses on the medium ‘television’, how it is a complex sign which is three dimensional, transferred to a two dimensional image and exhibited. The images exhibited in television are real and not natural. The visual and the aural both are conglomerated and they form an integral part of the production even in the depiction of a cow. Here we come across both connotation and denotation. Denotation is the literal meaning which is cow that denotes a domestic animal and from there connotation occurs; the identification of the cow’s colour or physical attributes, etc. But anything and everything is cultural bound. Culture brings in dominant meanings. The problem with the mass is that of ‘subjective capacity’ as opposed to the ‘objective’. We have different subjective ideals and not just one objective view.

An old-fashioned Indian would consider the change in dressing style (modern) to be spoiling the ‘Indianness’ whereas a youngster would argue saying that it is necessary. The subjectivity changes from person to person.

Hall frames three hypothetical positions from which decodings of a television discourse may be constructed, viz-a-viz, the dominant hegemonic position, the negotiated code and the oppositional code. The hegemonic code is always the dominant followed by the bourgeois, the negotiated code followed by the majority and the oppositional code which is just the minority which accepts it. The whole component takes us to the theory propounded by Ferdinand de Saussure, where the sign, signifier and the signified changes from person to person, from culture to culture and from school of thought to another. Thus this essay focuses on how the entire communicative notion can be reframed and agreed upon by the mass.

Notes

Hall, Stuart. “Encoding/Decoding*”. Birmingham, 1973.

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses- Louis Althusser

the following write up on Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses is by Nidhi V. Krishna

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In his essay, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Louis Althusser demonstrates that in order to exist, a social formation is required to essentially, continuously and perpetually reproduce the productive forces (labour-power), the conditions of production and the relations of production. The reproduction of productive forces is ensured by the wage system which pays a minimum amount to the workers so that they appear to work day after day, thereby limiting their vertical mobility. The reproduction of the conditions of production and the reproduction of the relations of production happens through the State Apparatuses which are insidious machinations controlled by the capitalist ruling ideology in the context of a class struggle to repress, exploit, extort and subjugate the ruled class.

The Marxist spatial metaphor of the edifice, describes a social formation, constituted by the foundational infrastructure i.e., the economic base on which stands the superstructure comprising of two floors: the Law-the State (politico-legal) and Ideology. Althusser extends this topographical paradigm by stating that the Infrastructural economic base is endowed with an “index of effectivity” which enables it to ultimately determine the functioning of the superstructure. He scrutinizes this structural metaphor by discussing the superstructure in detail. A close study of the superstructure is necessitated due to its relative autonomy over the base and its reciprocal action on the base.

Althusser regards the State as a repressive apparatus which is used by the ruling class as a tool to suppress and dominate the working class. According to Althusser, the basic function of the Repressive State Apparatus (Heads of State, government, police, courts, army etc.) is to intervene and act in favour of the ruling class by repressing the ruled class by violent and coercive means. The Repressive state apparatus (RSA) is controlled by the ruling class, because more often than not, the ruling class possesses State power.

Althusser takes the Marxist theory of the State forward by distinguishing the repressive State Apparatus from the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA). The ISAs consist of an array of institutions and multiple realities that propagate a wide range of ideologies such as Religious ISA, Educational ISA, Family ISA, Legal ISA, Political ISA, Communications ISA, Cultural ISA etc. He accentuates the differences between the RSA and the ISAs as follows:

1. The RSA functions as a unified entity (an organized whole) as opposed to the ISA which is diverse and plural. However, what unites the disparate ISAs is the fact that they are ultimately controlled by the ruling ideology.

2. The RSA function predominantly by means of repression and violence and secondarily by ideology whereas the ISA functions predominantly by ideology and secondarily by repression and violence. The ISA functions in a concealed and a symbolic manner.

He declares that the School has supplanted the Church as being the crucial ISA which augments the reproduction of the relations of production (i.e., the capitalist relations of exploitation) by training the students to become productive forces (labour-power) working for and under the Capitalist agents of exploitation. The Educational ISAs, which assume a dominant role in a Capitalist economy, conceal and mask the ruling class ideology behind its liberating qualities so that their hidden agendas become inconspicuous to the parents of the students.

Althusser compares “ideology” to Freud’s “unconscious”. In the same sense that Freud had stated that the unconscious was eternal, he hypothesizes that ideology too is eternal due to its omnipresence. Therefore, ideology in general has no history.

Althusser posits that it is not possible for a class to hold State power unless and until it exercises its hegemony (domination) over and in the ISA at the same time. The importance of ISAs is understood in the wake of class struggles because ISAs are not only a crucial stake in class struggle but they are also the site of class struggle. The resistances of the exploited classes are able to find means and opportunities to express themselves in the ISAs to overpower the dominant class. An oppressed class can end its oppression by over powering the dominant/ruling class by utilizing the contradictions within the ISAs or by conquering combating positions in the ISAs during struggle.

The crux of Althusser’s argument is the structure and functioning of “ideology”. Althusser explains the structure and functioning of ideology by presenting two theses. Firstly, he posits that ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. This distortion of reality is caused by material alienation and by the active imagination of oppressive individuals who base their domination and exploitation on the falsified representations of the world in order to enslave the relatively passive minds of the oppressed. Secondly, he posits that ideology always has a material existence in the form of concrete entities or apparatuses (ISAs). Hence, an individual’s belief in various ideologies (imaginary realities) is derived from the ideas of the individual who is a subject endowed with a consciousness that is defined by the ISAs. This (false) consciousness inspires and instigates the subject to behave in certain ways, adopt certain attitudes and participate in certain regular practices which conform to the ideology within which he recognizes himself as a subject. The ideas of the subject are inscribed in the ritual practices based on the “correct” principles of that ideology. Hence, despite the imaginary distortion by ideology, a subject derives his beliefs from the ideas which become his material actions and practices governed by material rituals which are all defined by material ideological apparatus and derived from the same.

Althusser’s central thesis states that ideology transforms individuals as subjects by a process of interpellation or hailing. The Family ISA is at work even before a child is born because it predetermines the identity of the child before its birth. Hence, an individual is always-already a subject. An individual is subjected to various levels of ideological subjection and each level of subjection or each ISA that subjects the individual influences the individual’s day to day activities and thereby determines his real conditions of existence. Further, Althusser demonstrates that the recognition of oneself as a ‘free’ subject within an ideology is only a misrecognition because the notion of a ‘free’ subject in ideology is only an illusion. In reality, the subject is subjugated, limited, restricted and controlled by ideology to such an extent that he has limited freedom and diminutive individual agency. Due to this misrecognition the subject acts and practices rituals steeped in the dominant ideology that are detrimental to his/her own welfare.

Understanding Culture- Mrinalini Sebastian

the following write up on Understanding Culture is by Foram Jakhria

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Mrinalini Sebastian in her essay Understanding Culture focuses on various ways in which “Culture” has been defined and understood. She also agrees to Raymond Williams’ idea of ‘Culture’ as a synonym of ‘Civilization’. But through this essay, She tries to highlight ‘Culture’ and its meaning within the context of India – which is needed to be redefined.

Raymond Williams’ notion of Culture cannot be applied to Indian audience because his ideas are meant for his countrymen. In this essay, Sebastian cites Raymond Williams, but places her own view of Culture with relation to India specifically. She attempts to point out that Indian Culture or our understanding of ancient Indian Culture came from the descriptions, views, perspectives, photographs, etc of India collected by the colonizers or the western travelers.

Indian Culture which is known for its Religion, Temples, Classical Music, Dance, Mysticism, etc was recognized by the colonial powers. Colonizers considered Indian Culture as the one that is in opposition to their Western Culture and therefore, thought there is a need to revive Indian Culture to a large extent. For them, Indian Culture was the Culture of the ‘Other’. And what Sebastian points out by tracing this historical past that today India’s Culture has great amount of Colonial influence and impact.

Not only colonial past alone, but also Globalization and Liberalization have changed the image of our Indian Culture. Sebastian points out that our legal structures, policies, systems of Governance and Education, etc are heavily shaped by mimicking our colonial masters. Then, What is really “Indian” in it? Is what she addresses the readers to question. She throws light upon the missing ‘Indianness’ in our current Indian Culture.

In Sebastian’s view, ‘Culture’ needs to be redefined and re-understood by placing it in our own context. For this, we have to come-up with our own theories and frameworks about Culture by taking into consideration our colonial legacies and also, exploring new ways of understanding Culture by our own experiences of everyday life. The central idea of writing this essay is Understanding our own Culture by our own perspectives rather than relying on others to understand our Culture from their view points about India.

Net and Multiple Realities- Jodi Dan

the following write up on Net and Multiple Realities is by Vipin George

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There is no doubt that the Internet is a wondrous creation. The entire world is rapidly becoming obsessed with it. Everywhere you look, you are bound to see something related to the Internet. Jodi dean, in one of her most recent essays “The Net and Multiple Realities” deals with her understanding of net and the way net is perceived in the modern society. The essay is divided in two parts. The first part of the essay is centred around three issues. Firstly, what is the significance of considering net as a public sphere? There are arguments for and against this proposal. Some consider it as a public sphere as it gives opportunities for interaction, and register their thoughts and opinions in political discussions. It is almost like the way democracy functions. Democracy as a political system is based on discussion, inclusion and participation. Due to the advancement of net, there is the emergence of ‘world Public Sphere’, which means the information is no more the privilege of the elite but everyone has access to information and can register their thoughts. “The internet is a great facility to enhance democracy and individual participation in politics, only if the thoughts and voices of different people are posed properly, with organization and clarity, through a website that is recognized by the state and government, a website that has legitimacy” However, the challenge in considering net as a true public sphere is due to the fact that even today net is limited to the urban population even though it is making inroads in to the rural area. Again, people who engage on net debate and discussion are the techno-savvy elite and not the masses or the majority of the population. In my opinion, there is a long way to go before net can be considered as a true public sphere representing the masses.

Secondly, Jodi Dean tries to redefine net as communicative capitalism. The most significant aspect of net is that it is a medium of communication. Today it has become a system like capitalism with its own rules, regulations and structure. These regulatory interventions are invoked and pursued to make the net safe for commercial exchange, to protect the intranets of financial markets, establish the trust necessary for consumer confidence in online transactions, and to make appear as a public sphere what is clearly the material basis of the global economy. “Communicative capitalism designates that form of late capitalism in which values heralded as central to democracy take material form in networked communications technologies.” However, we think that net is encouraging participation but actually it is a financially mediated exchange centred on advertising, public relations and the means of mass communication. Thus, it only strengthens capitalism and the elite, and gives a false sense of participation, power and hope to the mass. Of course, this view of looking at net may be a Marxist way of perceiving the net and its role in our society. The net allegedly opens the world to everyone, regardless of race, creed, and sex which makes it democratic but still not everyone can afford to go online.

Thirdly, in order to have a critical perspective on the net and its relation to public sphere there is a need to consider public sphere as a construct, and subject it to critique. The ideology of techno-culture is centred on publicity. Publicity makes communicative capitalism seem natural and unavoidable. It gives us the matrix that tells us what to think, what to see, and what to desire. The new media is presented as the new democratic public, where we have all the privileges of democracy without the mess created by millions of people interacting together. But a closer look at the technoculure reveals that what it offers is not democracy but a communicative capitalism. As Saskia Sassen's research on the impact of economic globalization on sovereignty and territoriality makes clear, the speed, simultaneity, and interconnectivity of electronic telecommunications networks produce massive distortions and concentrations of wealth. An integral element of this communicative capitalism is the publicity. It makes today’s communicative capitalism seem perfectly natural.

In the second part of the essay Jodi defines net in terms of two concepts such as zero institution and neo-democracy. Zero institution as a concept was introduced by Claude Levi-Strauss. It means a shared understanding (assumption) that is never represented. “Like Hitler, assumes that marriage is solely for procreation . Kall assumes humans are simply “cells” in the body politic, nothing more.” (Thompson) It is an institution that has no positive function at all. Dean considers net as a zero institution because it allows myriad conflicting constituencies to understand themselves as part of the same global structure even though they disagree over that the architecture of this structure. For example, “where tradition and kinship have been superseded by modernity "the nation" takes on the role of a zero-institution."Liberals" and "conservatives" may have opposing, or even mutually exclusive, understandings about social organization but both groups agree they belong to a larger community that binds them together regardless of conflict and difference.” This conflict links net to be considered as neo-democracy. Neo-democracies are configured through contestation and conflict. It is like the public sphere that has been the site of political legitimating through discussion and debate over matters of common concern. In the same way the neo-democratic networks are contestatory networks, networks of engagements around issues of vital concern to their constituents.

Internet is here to stay and it has its wide ramifications for our social, political, economic and cultural life. It is of great help to student’s community as information and knowledge recourse have become easily available and affordable.

References

Dean, Jodi. “The Net and Multiple Realities” The Cultural Studies Reader. Eds. Simon During, London: Routledge, 2007. Print.

“Communicative Capitalism: Jodi Dean” Internet and it’s Effects. 28 Oct. 2008. Web. 5 Feb. 2011. http://mustafa-internetanditseffects.blogspot.com/2008/10/communicative-capitalism-jodi-dean.html

“Zero Institution” Ghost of a Flea. 31 August, 2005. Web. 6 Feb. 2011. http://www.ghostofaflea.com/archives/006359.html

“Zero Institution” Web. 5 Frb.2011. http://www.valdosta.edu/~tthompson/ppts/3330/fall09/kallocain3_09.pdf

A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste - Pierre Bourdieu

the following is a write up on A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Josy Mary Edwin

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Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was a French sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher. His best known book is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Bourdieu’s work is influenced by much of traditional anthropology and sociology which he undertook to synthesize into his own theory. His key terms were habitus(which is adopted through upbringing and education), capital and field. He extended the idea of capital to categories such as social, capital, cultural capital and symbolic capital. For Bourdieu each individual occupies a position in a multidimensional social space. He or she is not defined only by social class membership, but by every single kind of capital he or she can articulate through social relations.

Bourdieu claims that how one chooses to present one’s social space to the world, one’s aesthetic disposition depicts one’s status and distances oneself from lower groups. Specifically he says that these dispositions are internalized at an early age and guide the young towards their appropriate social positions, towards the behaviors that are suitable for them, and a dislike towards other behaviors. Bourdieu theorizes that class fractions which are determined by a combination of the varying degrees of social, economic and cultural capital, teach aesthetic preferences to their young.

The development of aesthetic dispositions are very largely determined by social origin rather than accumulated capital and experience over time. The acquisition of cultural capital depends heavily on the family background. People inherit their cultural attitudes and accepted definitions that their elders offer them. According to Bourdieu, tastes in food, culture and presentation are indicators of class because trends in their consumption seemingly correlate with an individual’s fit in society. He believes that class distinction and preferences are most obvious in the ordinary choices of everyday life, such as furniture, clothing or cooking. In fact the strongest and most important mark of infant learning would probably be in the tastes of food. Meals served on special occasions are an interesting indicator of the mode of self presentation adopted in showing off a life-style. The idea is that their likes and dislikes should mirror those of their associated class fractions.

The degree to which social origin affects these preferences surpasses both educational and economic capital. At equivalent levels of educational capital, social origin remains an influential factor in determining these dispositions. How one describes one’s social environment is closely related to social origin because the instinctive narrative springs from early stages of development. Also, across the divisions of labor economic constraints tend to relax without any fundamental change in the pattern of spending. This observation according to Bourdieu reinforces the idea that social origin, more than economic capital, produces aesthetic preferences because regardless of economic capability, consumption patterns remain stable..

Postmodernism or the Cultural logic of late Capitalism- Frederic Jameson

the following is a write up on Postmodernism or the Cultural logic of late Capitalism by Rungkan Leelasopawut

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In this essay, Jameson lays out the differences in culture between the modern and postmodern periods. He also devotes a lot of time to the effects of these changes on the individual. Jameson is concerned with the cultural expressions and aesthetics associated with the different systems of production. He is not interested in a mechanism of change. This is a primarily descriptive article. Jameson draws on the fields of architecture, art and other culturally expressive forms to illustrate his arguments. The heaviest emphasis is placed on architecture. It is essential to grasp postmodernism as discussed here not as a style, but as a dominant cultural form indicative of late capitalism.

Postmodernism is differentiated from other cultural forms by its emphasis on fragmentation. Fragmentation of the subject replaces the alienation of the subject which characterized modernism. Postmodernism is concerned with all surface, no substance. There is a loss of the center. Postmodernist works are often characterized by a lack of depth, a flatness. Individuals are no longer anomic, because there is nothing from which one can sever ties. The liberation from the anxiety which characterized anomie may also mean a liberation from every other kind of feeling as well. This is not to say that the cultural products of the postmodern era are utterly devoid of feeling, but rather that such feelings are now free-floating and impersonal. Also distinctive of the late capitalist age is its focus on commodification and the recycling of old images and commodities. A prime example of this is Warhol's work, as well as Warhol himself. Jameson refers to this cultural recycling as historicism - the random cannibalization of all styles of the past. It is an increasing primacy of the 'neo' and a world transformed into sheer images of itself. the actual organic tie of history to past events is being lost.

All of these cultural forms are indicative of postmodernism, late capitalism, or what Jameson calls 'present-day multinational capitalism.' (Yessirree, Jameson is a Marxist.) Jameson claims that there has been a radical shift in our surrounding material world and the ways in which it works. He refers to an architectural example, a postmodern building Symbolic of the multinational world space which we function in daily. We, the human subjects who occupy this new space have not kept pace with the evolution which produced it. There has been a mutation in the object, unaccompanied as yet by an equivalent mutation in the subject; we do not yet possesses the perceptual equipment to match this new hyperspace. Therein lies the source of our fragmentation as individuals.

This latest mutation in space, postmodern hyperspace, (the Bonaventura hotel is the example) has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world. This is the symbol and analougue of our inability at present to map the great global multinational and decentered communicational network in which we find ourselves caught as individual subjects. We are now a world where spatial differentiation is more important than temporal differentiation, which was dominant in past eras. Late capitalism aspires to a total space, a vastness of scale heretofore unknown.

To conclude, Jameson maintains that postmodernisms not only a currently fashionable style but the cultural dominant. Jameson points out that what modernists were once considered to be great aesthetic and highly creative and represent the urbanization is now changed. Post modernism is something that has great significant impact in every aspects of our daily live. Whether we want it or not, we will be forced to imbibe it by any means. Post modernism is nothing but the influence of media or so- called mass culture. Post modernism in short can be called as the capitalism or mass culture. Therefore post modernism has the culture of popularity.

Walking in the City- Michel de Certeau

the following is a write up on Walking in the City by Vandana S.

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Michel de Certeau was a French scholar whose work combined history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the social sciences. He was greatly influenced by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Certeau’s essay Walking in the City is from his well-known book The Practice of Everyday Life. It was originally published in French in the year 1980. Steven Rendall translated it into English in 1984. The book is considered as very influential in cultural studies as it talks about the value of everyday life.

The essay is carefully poised between poetry and semiotics. It begins with looking down on the city of New York from the top of the World Trade Centre, and enjoying the pleasures of seeing the city laid out below. He says ‘to be lifted to the summit of the World Trade Centre is to be lifted out of the city’s grasp’. Through this one gets a voyeuristic pleasure by being able to watch the city from a distance. But to understand the everyday life, one must finally fall back into the dark space where crowds move back and forth.

A city can exist only if there are people in it. The ordinary practitioners of the city are the pedestrians who make use of the spaces to walk and they bring life to the city. The pedestrians on the streets write the urban ‘text’ without being able to read it.

Walking in the city turns out to have its own logic – or as de Crerteau puts it, its own rhetoric. The walker individuates and makes ambiguous the ‘legible’ order given to cities by planners, a little like waking lie is displaced and ambiguated by dreaming- to take one of de Certeau’s several analogies. Walking in the City has been very influential in cultural studies just because of the waay that it uses both imagination and technical semiotic analysis to show how everyday life has particular value when it takes place in the gaps of larger power-structures.

Myth Today- Roland Barthes

the following is a write up on Myth Today by Farah Aleem Ghori

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Roland Barthes born in 1915 was a French literary critic and semiotician. Barthes has contributed to the field of mythology, semeiology and structuralism.

Mythologies is the title of a book by Roland Barthes which was published in 1957. It examines the creation of modern myths. Barthes also looks into the process of myth creation. He revises Ferdinand de Saussure's system of sign analysis by adding a second level where signs are elevated to the level of myth. Mythologies is split into two: Mythologies and Myth Today, the first section consisting of a collection of essays on selected modern myths and the second further and general analysis of the concept.

Roland Barthes says that only rhetorical forms of bourgeois myth can be sketched and not the dialectic or categorical forms. Rhetoric over here means a set of fixed regulated figures according to which the mythical signifier arranges themselves. In the contemporary bourgeois society, it is through their rhetoric that the passage from the real to the ideological is defined as that from an anti-physis to pseudo-physis. This defines the dream of the bourgeois world. Roland Barthes also lists out its principal figures.

The inoculation

This is a form of captivating language. It consists of acknowledging a small or accidental detail (or evil, as Barthes calls it) to mask bigger details or problems. A good example concerns the army: “Yes, the army is a stiff and blind and narrow minded– but it is also our greatest defence, the savoir of our country and a tool for spreading bigger good”. This kind of language is usually used concerning institutions, to create a good-bad balance for them to exist in, where one side always outweighs the other, serving the purpose of the institution. Barthes here speaks about the changing nature of the bourgeois. It has changed its position from being rigid to flexible. This has given way to a balanced economy.

The privation of history

Barthes argues that myth-making removes from an object all of its history. He gives the example of the ideal servant, who prepares everything. However, disappears when the master arrives. The master thus enjoys this beautiful product without wondering from where it comes from. Myth-making removes from an object all of its history and place in reality, and through the irresponsibility of language, removes any freedom concerning the object. This is because anything outside of reality is hard to change. By making something eternal its freedom to be anything else disappears and it is caught in the false reality of language.

Identification

The petit-bourgeois is unable to imagine the Other. He either transforms the Other or denies it. One example can be media’s portrayal of women. The difference between men and women is minimized to the extent that they follow the same lifestyles. They have equal and same status as of men in the society. This confirms that the “otherness” is reduced to “sameness”. However women are not the main characters of the discussion and this implies the marginality, in other words, the bourgeoisie’s partial incapability to imagine the Other.

Tautology

According to Barthes “Tautology is this verbal device which consists of defining like by like (‘Drama is Drama’)”. When one is at a loss for explanation, there is accidental failure of language. Here, one kills rationality because it resists one, one kills language because it betrays one. Barthes also quotes a great example of this: “Because thats how it is, just because.” Another one I add is “It is what it is“. Such statements defy logic because they make anything permissible: the statement justify themselves. This work like in math, when one gets x=x, which is meaningless but absurdly true. Once again: this represent the boundaries of where language ends and cannot keep up with the reality is trying to describe. Thus, it creates an excuse to get around and further than reality, something of its own. Tautology thus creates a dead and motionless world as refusal of language is its death.

Neither-Norism

This is quite similar in method to Barthes’ inoculation. A balance is created by weighing too sides against each other. Here however, the myth-maker strives to create equality between both sides. Neither is better or worse than the other. They are weighed in relation to each other. Any objective qualities the two sides may have are lost.

The quantification of quality

When language cannot handle the complexities of reality, it strives to economize the world: qualities become quantities, and once again, language goes beyond reality to judge it. This is a figure concealed in all the preceding ones. Myth understands reality more cheaply by reducing any quality to quantity.

The statement of fact

Barthes argues myths tend towards proverbs, as a function of generalization and institutionalization. Barthes says that speech in particular can be of two types: active or reflexive. He uses the example of a farmer stating “the weather is fine” as active speech. This is because language here keeps a link to the real weather outside and its usefulness. Active language is almost technical language. Active language later turns in to reflexive language, which is removed from reality now. It allows for no freedom, and like a tautology, does not represent anything other than itself. Reflexive language is simpler and a form of generalization.

These rhetoric figures are without any special order. There can also be additions and subtractions to it. They can also be replaced with new figures.

Thus myths are born by trying to capture and possess the world. Myth-making tries to fix reality in one place and one form, to get out its essence by making it analogous to language. Myth-making tries to fix reality in one place and one form, to get out its essence by making it parallel to language. The failure of language merits myth-making. Simply because language cannot account for all of reality, generalizations must be made to deal with that.

In Barthes’s closing remarks in the ‘Necessity and limits of mythology’ section of ‘Myth Today’, he characteristically, positions himself (‘the mythologist himself’) as an excluded and alienated figure. The author begins this concluding section of his essay with a commentary on the nature and experience of mythologists, those who examine and understand myths (referring, it seems, and at least to some degree, to himself). He suggests first that "mythology is certain to participate in the making of the world," adding that "mythology harmonizes with the world, not as it is, but as it wants to create itself." He then goes on to write that that mythologists, by the very nature of what they do (examine and understand myths, their meaning and purpose) exist outside of both the meaning and purpose of myths, as well as outside the experience of the general, unenlightened humanity myths are clearly intended to affect.

Bibliography

"Barthes, Roland(1915–1980)." BookRags. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Feb 2011. .

Krasovska, Laura. "Roland Barthes: Analysis of the Concept of Identification in Nowadays Media." N.p., 5.12.2006. Web. 6 Feb 2011. http://www.scribd.com/doc/4961779/Roland-Barthes-Analysis-of-the-Concept-of-Identification-in-Nowadays-Media

Kudryashov, Roman. "Roland Barthes – Myth Today."What are these ideas and why are they here?. 11- 9- 2010 . Web. 6 Feb 2011. .

"Mythologies Study Guide." BookRags. BookRags, n.d. Web. 6 Feb 2011. .