Area Of Cultural Studies Research Articles

ENCODING REALITY INTO FICTION/ DECODING FICTION AS REALITY: POSTMODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY AS CRITICAL THEORY

This paper is intended as a brief critical review of three interrelated, fairly similar critical theories, born out the necessity of looking into cultural forms and products with a view to finding the politics at work therein. While American New Historicism is more historically oriented, British Cultural Materialism, with its more obvious influence from Marxism, Postcolonialism and other theories which place the margin at their centre, seems to be more in tune with contemporaneity, and so is the area of Cultural Studies, with its emphasis on cultural representations. It is advocated here that contemporary fiction cannot be fully separated from other textual forms, which are considered here historiographic (not historical) because of their nature of texts produced subjectively, within a certain political, social and cultural context, irrespective of their assumed scientific objectivity. Literature, it is further argued, has become a discourse-oriented endeavour with an active participation, an idea supported in the present study by making reference to several critical and polemic writings by Salman Rushdie, which, in a topsyturvy, postmodernist manner, are foregrounded before, and not after the literature review proper.

The Discourse of Noble Soul in Serat Kawruh Mahnitisme Manuscript

This study aims at understanding and describing the discourse clarity, how the discourse is constructed and the implication of discursion of noble soul in sêrat kawruh mahnitismê manuscript in Javanese’s people life. The Sêrat Kawruh Mahnitismê will be written as SKM in this essay. This manuscript is in manuscript song form which consists of 13 pupuh ‘lyric’, and written using Javanese alphabet and in Javanese language that have been both translated and transcribed into Latin language. The manuscript is stored in Kerataon Surakarta Hadiningrat library Sasanapustaka containing teachings about how a person gets a perfection and used it as a tool to fulfill his dreams. This research is done in the area of Cultural Studies with qualitative data analysis and descriptive and interpretative analysis techniques that use a hermeneutic approach. This research use content analysis and library studies as method of data collection. The theory use is Michael Foucault discourse theory. The results show that: (1) the cause of discourse of noble soul in SKM manuscript that resulted hegemony; (2) the construction process in discourse of noble soul in SKM manuscript happens from ideal becomes humanist and (3) the implication of the discourse of noble soul in SKM manuscript in the millennial era

Vidas caladas: a voz feminina na obra São Bernardo de Graciliano Ramos

RESUMO: A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo investigar a representação da figura feminina na obra São Bernardo, de Graciliano Ramos, especificamente no que se refere aos aspectos da violência e da opressão. Nesse sentido, buscou-se compreender a representação do feminino a partir do viés cultural da época de publicação da obra, enfatizando os fatores de dominação, submissão, silenciamento e exercício de poder sobre o gênero feminino. Para tanto, a escolha dessa obra como corpus da pesquisa foi motivada por representar uma personagem feminina complexa, imponente que compartilha de pensamento emancipador em meio a um período marcado pelo patriarcado. Assim, este estudo proporcionou percorrer um percurso interdisciplinar a partir das áreas dos estudos culturais, estudos literários e crítica feminista, contextualizando o período histórico representado na obra. Por outro lado, o romance também nos permitiu analisar a trajetória da mulher, situando as imposições e restrições através dos papéis preestabelecidos pela cultura e sociedade do período, além de possibilitar o estabelecimento de correlações com a mulher e o seu papel na contemporaneidade. Durante a investigação, consegue-se observar marcas do preconceito e da inferiorização enfrentados pelo gênero feminino, principalmente em relação às funções impostas no convívio social, prevalecendo uma hierarquia entre os gêneros masculino e feminino, ressaltando a dependência e a submissão feminina. A pesquisa teve como fundamentação teórico-metodológica as concepções de Beauvoir (1980); Benedict (2013); Friedan (1971); Laraia (2009); Ortner (2017) Tedeschi (2008), dentre outros. Neste trabalho, foram observados traços que representaram o caráter agressivo e dominador do homem, enquanto sujeito social e culturalmente considerado superior perante a mulher, idealizada como gênero mais frágil e auxiliar do homem. Ao longo da investigação, percebemos, em São Bernardo, a atribuição da inferiorização atribuída à mulher.
 PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Graciliano Ramos. São Bernardo. Mulher.

Seeking Identities Across the Worlds---A Critical Analysis of Ang Lee’s Film The Wedding Banquet

Up till the present, most researches on Ang Lee’s films focused on cultural difference and cultural clash in the area of cultural studies. The identity problems facing by the Asian diasporas are neglected by past researchers. Based on the exploration of cultural identity from the perspective of diaspora in cross-cultural world, this paper picks up the Chinese English film The Wedding Banquet as an exemplification to interpret cultural identity politics of the immigrants in America. In the film The Wedding Banquet, the protagonists' identities are fragmented as the coming of the joyous parents comes from Taiwan for the wedding. This exploration of identity can help us to understand the exilic essence of the immigrants’ identity. For the immigrants, identity is always floating and travelling, without a final destination, except some temporary location. The happy ending of the film could be viewed as the “hybridization” of cultural recognition and as the ultimate solution to the identity problem and the Chinese-American cultural confrontation.

Philosophical and Cultural Aspects of Medical Profession: Philosophical and Conceptual Peculiarities

The article analyzes the philosophical and cultural view of “doctor’s professional culture” as a result of centuries-old practice of human relations, which is characterized by constancy and passed from generation to generation. Medicine is a complex system in which an important role is played by: philosophical outlook of a doctor, philosophical culture, ecological culture, moral culture, aesthetic culture, artistic culture. We have found that within the system “doctor-patient” the degree of cultural proximity becomes a factor that influences the health or life of a patient. Thus, the following factors are important here: 1) communication that suppresses a sick person; 2) the balance of cultural and intellectual levels; 3) the cultural environment of a patient which has much more powerful impact on a patient than the medical one.At the present stage, the interdependence of professional and humanitarian training of future specialists is predominant, as a highly skilled specialist can not but become a subject of philosophizing. We outlined the sphere where the doctors present a genre variety of philosophizing (philosophical novels, apologies, dialogues, diaries, aphorisms, confessions, essays, etc.). This tradition represents the original variations in the formation of future doctor’s communicative competences, which are formed in the process of medical students’ professional training.A survey conducted among medical students made it possible to establish their professional values, which are indicators of the formation of philosophical and culturological competence. It was found out that 92% of respondents believed that a doctor should demonstrate a high level of health culture (avoid drinking and smoking habits, etc.)99% of respondents favoured a high level of personal qualities of a doctor which would allow methods and forms of medical practice to assert higher human ideals of truth, goodness and beauty that are the subject area of cultural studies and philosophy.

The Information Nature of Culture

This paper explores the information nature of culture. It is represented as an extragenetic and nonorganizational information process and system. Information is regarded as a universal property of matter that is essentially associated with development processes and realizes various forms and ways of storage and circulation at various development stages of global evolution. The socio-cultural principle of exogenous accumulation, transmission, and transformation of information is analyzed in the context of the continuing growth of the information content of material systems on the superhighway of global-universal evolution. It is noted that the information concept of culture evolves into a new area of cultural studies, that is information and cultural studies, advancing our understanding of the nature of culture and cultural genesis.

Learning from ‘SH’: 1974-1979, 2012-14

This piece presents an overview of Stuart Hall’s contribution from both a personal and an intellectual standpoint. It surveys the development of his work and influence in the areas of cultural studies and social studies, providing a critical overview of his political arguments.

Die Einbeziehung landeskundlichen Wissens in die Entwicklung sprachlichen Fähigkeiten

Integrating cultural knowledge for skills development language among GFL students
 The development of foreign language skills through cultural studies means the expansion, deepening and, above all, the precise understanding of the vocabulary. The cultural-semantic level of the vocabulary is also taken into account in the text and this is the area of cultural studies. For this reason, a brief overview of cultural studies - semantics - relationship must be given. This article examines whether foreign language teaching with regard to the inclusion of cultural content meets the requirements of the Higher eduaction system such as the development of the learner's personality, the connection of cultural material to the world of experience of the learners, the promotion of motivation for independent employment with cultural Content, search and use of all possibilities for encountering the target language country and culture.

Антропологія літератури в польському літературознавстві

The subject of the article is a problem of anthropological theory of literature in Polish, modern literature studies. Today in the Polish literary studies there is a large number of publications based on the concept of “anthropology of literature”. Popularity, of the anthropological context of literary studies encourages some researchers to observe phenomena of “anthropological revolution in literary criticism”. Polish literary studies haven’t still created a single, coherent definition of “anthropology of literature”. Most researchers emphasize interdisciplinary and open nature “of the anthropological project of literature”. The authors note that the literary text, included in a broad cultural context can be interpreted in terms beyond the literary, as one of the cultural practices.The benefits of this study is a presentation of the most modern and current trends in the Polish literary theory. Literary increasingly turning to interdisciplinary research, as a result there is a union of the areas of cultural studies, cultural anthropology and literary theory.The article presents the concepts of the following researchers: Edward Kasperski, Grzegorz Godlewski, Ryszard Nycz, Malgorzata Czerminska, Ewa Kosowska, and others.It was tested in this study, that the term “anthropology of literature” is interpreted variously, and is not subject to a single definition. Literary researcher, Michal Pawel Markowski, says, that the phrases: “literary anthropology”, and “anthropology of literature” could mean the phenomenon quite different from each other – the differences was shown in this text. According to some researchers, the notion of “anthropology of literature” is still not the clear concept of literary analysis, but a kind of an interdisciplinary project with undefined boundaries.

Exhibiting the ‘Orient’: Historicising Theory and Curatorial Practice in UK Museums and Galleries

This paper examines the extent to which theory emerges in practice within the context of museum curatorship and the public discourses surrounding it. The theoretical context is the legacy of Edward W Said's canonical study, Orientalism and its call for ‘Western’ reflexivity in the politics of representation of the Islamic Near East. We argue that Said's study has, in its own right, engendered a field of professional academic discourse in the areas of cultural studies and postcolonial studies. We, however, begin to ask about the extent to which its arguments and insights explicitly inform the work of representation and interpretation of the material culture of the Near East in ‘Western’ institutions. This exploratory study draws on four cases of exhibitions on Iranian, Turkish, and the broader field of Islamic art in nationally funded or endorsed museums and galleries in the United Kingdom. All of the exhibitions took place after 2001 amongst cultural and political discourses concerning Islam during the so-called ‘War on Terror’. This convergence of an established ‘Saidian’ theoretical legacy and recent geopolitical events that once again raise questions about the relationship between the ‘West’ and ‘Islam’ allows these exhibitions and the discourses surrounding them to be historically emplotted in quite specific ways. Analysis of exhibition catalogues, consultants' impact reports, and interviews with curatorial staff leads us to conclude that, while a specific engagement with Said's work may not be in evidence, institutions and their staff do inhabit and act upon a discursive field that corresponds to that book's priorities and agenda. This invites further investigation into the form and process within which critical theory makes the transition from citation and discussion in strictly academic discourse to actual implementation in historically situated organisational practice.

Feelings, language and referential preferences in advertising (North America, French Canada and France)

This study is based on a bilingual corpus made up of advertisements published in North American magazines and their translations for French Canadians, and on a unilingual corpus of advertisements published in France.<p>Drawing primarily on research conducted in the area of cultural studies and on such concepts as universalism/particularism, individualism/collectivism, monochronic/synchronic cultures, etc., this paper analyses the part played by feelings and language, and the referential preferences in the North American advertisements, their translated versions and the French advertisements.

Translation and cultural mediation: The case of advertising in Canada

This study is based on a computerized corpus of advertisements published in the last twenty five years in North American magazines, and the translations of these advertisements for the French Canadian readership. Drawing primarily on work published in the area of cultural studies and on such concepts as low/high context cultures, high/low power distance cultures, universalism/particularism, individualism/collectivism, monochronic/ synchronic cultures, etc., this paper analyses some differences between the North American advertisements and their translated versions in the following areas : dietary practices, relationship between addresser and addressees, and social interactions.

“GDR Identity” in DEFA feature films

The question of whether the visual documents of an age can deliver insights into the history of mentalities is one which has always occupied researchers in the area of cultural studies generally an...

Karl Mannheim's sociology as political education

German professors and academic intellectuals are often blamed for their passivity or complicity in the face of the anti-Republican surge of the late Weimar years, culminating in the National Socialist rise to power. Karl Mannheim was a preeminent member of a vital minority committed to making German universities contribute to democratization. Mannheim argued that traditional German emphasis on the cultivation of individuals rooted in a certain high culture had to be adapted to a more egalitarian, socially complex community. He advocated teaching of sociology to create social awareness to inspire informed political judgments. Karl Mannheim's Sociology as Political Education situates Mannheim in the Weimar debates about sociology in the university. It shows how his project of political education for democracy informs his work as well as his relations with liberal, fascist, and orthodox Marxist thinkers.In advancing his educational strategy, Mannheim had to contend, with influential figures who attacked sociology as a mere political device to undermine cultural and national values for the sake of narrow interests and partisanship. He also had to overcome the objections of fellow sociologists, who felt the discipline would prosper only if it could persuade other academics that it made no claim to educational goals beyond the reproduction of technical findings. He had to separate himself from proponents of a politicized sociology. Mannheim argued that sociology should respond to problems that actually confronted individuals in their lives, be tolerant of difference and distance, and support efforts to generate agreement rather than encourage competition. Sociological thought had to be rigorous, critical, and attentive to evidence, but also congruent with the ultimate responsibility of individuals to fashion their lives through their acts.Karl Mannheim's Sociology as Political Education is a joint effort by two authors who have written separately on Karl Mannheim's sociological work and who write from different disciplines and traditions of commentary. The Mannheim who emerges from this volume is remarkably contemporary. In particular, he supports arguments that the threat to academic integrity is feared less in sociology than in certain areas of cultural studies. Certainly the issue of academic politicization was better understood by Mannheim in his time than it is by either side of the debate today.

The Bishop’s Palace: Architecture and Authority in Medieval Italy (review)

This significant book is the first history of the medieval episcopal residence in central and northern Italy. Remarkable for its geographical scope and chronological sweep, the book follows the development of this structure to "reexamine two important historiographical transformations: the birth of the communes and the reform of the medieval church" (p. 2). Inspired by recent approaches in the area of cultural studies that explore how space and material life project and convey notions of power, it describes the ways by which bishops used visual culture to affirm and assert their place within the late ancient and medieval city. It is an impressive work of comparative and interdisciplinary scholarship, and it places the episcopal residence at the center of political and cultural changes within the city before 1300.

Welcome to the Robbiedome

Welcome to the Robbiedome

Representing the Disputed Past of Northern Scotland: The Highland Clearances in Museums

The past and its representation have been the focus of much recent work in the area of cultural studies, history, sociology and anthropology; interdisciplinary approaches have also enhanced our knowledge of the social function of memory. In particular, the importance of the past and process of remembrance in identity construction, individual and collective, has been repeatedly highlighted. Since the appearance of Halbwachs’s seminal work on collective memory, the concept has been alternatively employed as self-explanatory, with caution, or rejected; it has been redefined and fine-tuned to suit different perspectives. Collective memory will be used here to signify the past as it is represented in those “sites” whose object it is, in Western societies, to fulfill that particular task. Monuments, history books, commemorations, galleries and museums are among such sites. All partake in the production of history and never stand in pure innocence but are subject to powerful forces of a political, social or economic nature as well as conventions linked with professional practices or scientific methods. Museums of history in particular are quintessential sites of memory. They project a vision of a shared past through the history they produce and the narrative they construct. This inevitably implies selection and interpretation: the production of historical texts and the projection of a communal identity offered to the gaze of others—outside visitors—and reflected back to the surrounding community. The study of their social

Effeminism: the economy of colonial desire

Effeminism charts the flows of colonial desire in the works of British writers in India. Working on the assumption that desire is intensely political, historically constituted, and materially determined, the book shows how the inscriptions of masculinity in the fictions of Flora Annie Steel, Rudyard Kipling, and E. M. Forster are deeply implicated in the politics of colonial rule and anticolonial resistance. At the same time, the study refrains from representing colonialism as a coherent set of public events, policies, and practices whose social, political, and cultural meanings are self-evident. Instead, by tracing the resistant and unassailable modes of masculine desire in colonial fiction, the study insists on an explosive revolutionary potential that makes desire often intractable. And by restoring the political in the unconscious and the unconscious in the political, the book proposes to understand colonialism in terms of historical failure, ideological inadequacy, and political contention. This book will interest not only scholars of 19th- and 20th-century British literature and colonial and postcolonial literatures, but also those working in the areas of cultural studies, gender studies, and South Asian studies.Krishnaswamy uses 'effeminization' to describe the complicated paths of colonial sexual desire, stereotypes of Indian male passivity, and how 'colonizing men used womanhood to delegitimize, discredit and disempower colonized men.' Reading texts by Rudyard Kipling (a 'culturally hybrid male'), E. M. Forster (a homosexual), and F. A. Steel (a woman), the author shows how these tactics affect the representation not only of colonized men and women but also of the marginalized writers of the colonizing culture. In the process, she makes intriguing analogies between androgyny and biculturalism. --Choice

Adult education and critical identity development: from a deficiency orientation towards a competency orientation

The translation of this paper has been made possible with the financial help of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences) In this paper the authors criticise the growing tendency to conceive of adult education as a qualification oriented field of practice. Especially with respect to disadvantaged groups in society this orientation could have a stigmatizing effect. Various agents of education consider them as deficient and hence describe their identity in negative terms. Contrary to this, the authors develop a more positive orientation towards identity development and outline a new understanding of adult education. Their approach is inspired by insights developed in an area of cultural studies.

Doing Cultural Studies: Youth and the Challenge of Pedagogy

In this article, Henry Giroux explores two sides of one question: 1) why scholars working within the area of cultural studies do not take seriously pedagogy and the role of schools in shaping culture and politics; and 2) why educators have not engaged the possibilities inherent in a cultural studies framework to analyze central questions of teaching and learning. In particular, Giroux analyzes how youth are increasingly being addressed and positioned through the popular media, changing economic conditions, and an escalating wave of violence. He illustrates, both through theory and examples of his own teaching, how the pedagogy and the mobilization of desire implicit in several recent Hollywood films about youth culture reinforce dominant racist and cultural stereotypes, but also how the use of various critical pedagogical strategies in the classroom can create the conditions for rewriting such films.