Advanced Literary Theory

Seminar 10: Cultural Studies

For the seminar you should all do the following:

Read the following chapters in LTA (Literary Theory: An Anthology): Rivkins and Ryans introduction to Cultural Studies, entitled The Politics of Culture (LTA 1233-34) Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, The Culture Industry as Mass Deception( LTA 1242-46) Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (LTA 1258-67) John Fiske, Television Culture (LTA 1274-84) 1. Cultural Studies can be approached from two different perspectives: one topdown, where media, television and film, etc are seen as instruments of economic, ethnic and gender domination; and the other bottom-up, where culture comes from below and represents the possibility of eruption, of dissonance, and of an alternative imagination of reality (LTA 1234). Outline these two contrasting perspectives and give examples of theorists in these two categories. Which perspective do you think is the most feasible? 2. Horkheimer and Adorno argue that popular culture consists of simplified forms that diminish the complexities of human experience and serve the interests of powerful corporations. Explain what they mean when they say that the development of the culture industry has led to the predominance of the effect, the obvious touch, and the technical detail over the work itself (LTA 1244). Do you agree with these views? Give examples from popular culture to support your answer. 3. Hebdige discusses the subversive implication of style, especially the subculture of punk as a form of revolt, and sees punk as a form of resistant meaning-making, an anti-bourgeois style. Describe in what way punk can be said not only to upset the wardrobe but also undermine every relevant discourse (LTA 1260). Give examples of other subcultures that have similar subversive effects. 4. According to Fiske, a code is a rule-governed system of signs, whose rules and conventions are shared amongst members of a culture, and which is used to generate and circulate meanings in and for that culture (LTA 1275). Outline the different levels of Fiskes codes of television and show how a semiotic or cultural criticism can deconstruct the encoded reality as a highly ideological construct. Find examples from television of similar codings that can be used by viewers to decode cultural messages and allow them to think resistantly.

Theory in Practice

1. Consider how Hebdiges notion of the subversive implication of style, as a form of resistant meaning-making, an anti-bourgeois style, might be applied in a cultural analysis of The Bluest Eye. 2. Apply the concept of the code as a rule-governed system of signs, whose rules and conventions are shared amongst members of a culture, and which is used to generate and circulate meanings in and for that culture (Fiske LTA 1275) to King Lear. 3. Give a reading of the The Aspern Papers in light of Horkheimer and Adornos idea of culture as an industry that threatens to diminish the complexities of human experience. 4. Initiate a discussion by applying any of the above cultural theories to any poem of your choice from Bishop.