British Cultural Studies: Subjects and

Methods
I. Culture and Cultural Studies

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Katrin Röder

 Outline

1. Definition: Culture
2. The History of Cultural Studies
3. Important Developments in
Cultural Studies
 1. Definition: Culture


Word “culture” is derived from Latin “cultura”
• Meaning: cultivation of land (agriculture), of human beings
and animals
• 16th to early 19th century: “culture” used in connection /
synonymously with “civilization”, the cultivation of
manners, with education and social progress (freedom,
equality, justice, solidarity etc.)
 1. Definition: Culture

From a Eurocentric, colonist, often racist perspective, the notion
“culture” was used to denote the opposite of “barabarism” (non-
European cultures)

“Culture” comprises everything which was / is produced,
constructed or formed by human beings (as opposed to “nature”)
 1. Definition: Culture


Culture comprises: fine arts, sciences, tools, architecture,
products and techniques of industrial and agricultural
production, gardens, cities, infrastructure, religious practices,
institutions, societies, stamps, posters, sports, money etc.

Notion “culture” is used as a scientific term in many
disciplines: in anthropology, ethnology, science of history etc.

After 1850: distinction between a normative and a descriptive
notion of culture
 1. Definition: Culture


Normative notion of culture: cultivation of manners,
development of human beings and societies in the direction of
moral norms defined in philosophy, politics, the educational
system (Samuel von Pufendorf)

Descriptive notion of culture: description of contemporary or
historical cultures with a less obvious application of norms and
standards: Sir Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917), an English
anthropologist and a representative of cultural evolutionism
 1. Definition: Culture


E. B. Tylor: culture is “that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of
society.” Edward B. Tylor: Primitive Culture in 2 vols (London:
John Murray, 1871), 1.

Note: even the descriptive notions of culture (used in

anthroplology, ethnology and sociology) use norms &

standards to define what counts as culture or not

 1. Definition: Culture

From the 16th century to the beginning of the 19th century, the
notion “culture” was used primarily to denote the life and

manners of the aristocracy

Since the late 19th century, the notion “culture” is also used to
refer to the life and manners of other classes: middle and
working class culture
 1. Definition: Culture


Today, the notion “culture” is not only used to refer to high
culture, it also refers to everyday life and the popular media
(everyday culture, popular culture)

It can refer to cultures within cultures (subcultures)

It can refer to other cultures (non-European cultures)
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• 19th century: origin of the philosophy of culture as a new

sub-discipline of philosophy
• Cultural philosophy: reaction to the social changes in 19th-
century Europe
• Reaction to social changes and unprecedented social
problems after the Industrial Revolution
• Development of a new social class: working class,
unemployment, strikes, economic crises, poverty
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• 19th century: beginning of “Kulturwissenschaft”

• plurality of world views: Christian religion, (social)
Darwinism, liberalism (free market economy),
conservatism, socialism, imperialism / imperial colonialism
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• 19th century:
• Political emancipation movements: voting rights movement,
Suffragette movement, philanthropic societies, Labour Party
etc.
• Plurality of branches of knowledge and of notions of truth in
religion, biology, historiography, physics etc.
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Birth of new specialized sub-disciplines: sociology,

linguistics, anthropology, cultural philosophy, political
philosophy, psychology etc.
• Social changes and the unprecedented variety of forms of
knowledge as well as world views produced a necessity of
cultural self-reflection, including the self-reflection of the
various disciplines of knowledge
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Classical philosophy was too abstract and rigid to meet the

new demands of cultural self-reflection and cultural critique
in a quickly changing social context
• Cultural philosophy as a sub-discipline of philosophy and
Kulturwissenschaft were formed to meet these new demands
• In the 19th century, culture was no longer regarded as a
given, unchanging with clear, universal norms
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Culture was no longer seen as an answer to problems (as it

was in the old, normative notion of culture) but rather a
problem in itself, an object of analysis
• Task of cultural philosophy: description, investigation,
self-reflection and critique of cultures and evaluation of
various forms of knowledge
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Cultural philosophy: interdisciplinary academic subject, it

synthesizes and evaluates knowledge from other sub-
disciplines in the natural sciences and the humanities
• The members of Neo-Kantianism (1865-1918), a new
philosophical movement which developed in Germany,
emphasized the necessity of self-observation of cultures and
branches of knowledge
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Neo-Kantianism shifted the emphasis from an

investigation of objects to the reflection of the conditions
under which meaning and knowledge are produced
• Neo-Kantian philosophers: Herrmann von Helmholtz,
Friedrich Albert Lange, Wilhelm Windelbrand, Heinrich
Rickert and others
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Wilhelm Windelbrand (1848-1915)

• commented on the differences between the humanities and
the natural sciences
• Natural sciences: nomothetic approach to objects of
investigation (identification of general, universal laws)
• Humanities: ideographic approach to objects of
investigation (identification of specific, unique, original
traits and elements)
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Wilhelm Windelbrand (1848-1915)

• Humanities depend on the linguistic representation of
knowledge
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936)

• Nature does not contain values and meanings
• Culture: full of values and meanings
• Method of cultural philosophy: no imitation of reality but a
construction of reality and of its subject of analysis
(culture), investigation of the processes of meaning and
value construction
• But: cultural philosophy detects given cultural norms
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Georg Simmel (1858-1918)

• German cultural philosopher (Lebensphilosophie),
sociologist and cultural critic
• Closely related to Neo-Kantianism, well-known for his book
The Philosophy of Money (1900)
• Simmel also investigated modern life styles (everyday life,
fashion, urban life, food etc.) and modern character types:
e.g. the adventurer
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Georg Simmel (1858-1918)

• Simmel investigated the relation between the modern
individual and society
• Simmel described, analysed and criticized processes of
alienation in modern societies: specialized workers
cannot attribute meaning or value to their work, they
cannot relate the fragmented products of their work to
the whole product, its function and meaning
• Exception: artists
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Max Weber (1864-1920)

• German sociologist
• Investigated the development of modern capitalism in
“Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism” (1905)
• Investigation of a modern type of professional man /
entrepreneur in the capitalist world who is influenced by
Protestant / Puritan work ethics: hard work, frugality,
asceticism, self-control, accumulation of money
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945)

• German cultural philosopher
• Trained in the Neo-Kantian Marburg School
• Cassirer extended the field of investigation in cultural
studies: language, myth, use of symbols (Cassirer:
Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, 1922-29)
• Founder of “Kultursemiotik”, an important subdivision
of cultural studies and an important method of analysis
 2. The History of Cultural Studies

• Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945)

• There is no area of culture and life which is devoid of
symbols
• Symbols, signs, language, art, myth: no copies of reality
but constructions of reality or “Prägungen zum Sein”
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• Ethnology
• Descriptions, investigations and interpretations of other
cultures (symbols, rituals, artefacts)
• Ethnology is an important subject in Cultural Studies in
the later 20th century
• Clifford Geertz (1926-2006): The Interpretation of
Cultures (1973)
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• Ethnology
• Clifford Geertz's interpretation of other cultures
(symbols, rituals) was later challenged by members of
these other cultures: Geertz's interpretations did not
produce objective truths about the other cultures but
represent his own (Western) interpretation of these
cultures
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• British Cultural Studies

• 1964: foundation of the Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the U of Birmingham
• Influenced by Marxism
• Focus on working class culture, youth culture,
subculture, mass media, popular culture
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• British Cultural Studies

• Later: reception of Kultursemiotik and French and
American philosophers (Michel Foucault, Jacques
Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler)
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• British Cultural Studies

• Important representatives of British Cultural Studies:
• Richard Hoggart (1918-2014)
• Raymond Williams (1921-1988)
• Edward P. Thompson (1924-1992)
• Stuart Hall (1932-2014)
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• Postcolonial Studies / Postcolonial Theory

• Field of studies which investigates cultural
developments in the former British colonies after their
emancipation and in British society
• Marked by a strong critique of Western colonialism and
of Eurocentric thought
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• Postcolonial Studies / Postcolonial Theory

• Example: Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen
Tiffin: The Empire Writes Back (1989) on the change of
the Western literary canon through the introduction of
works from other cultures
• Example: Edward W. Said: Orientalism (1981),
investigation of Western stereotypes about the East
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• Postcolonial Studies / Postcolonial Theory

• Example: Homi K. Bhabha: The Location of Culture
(1994) focuses on intercultural contact and migrant
experiences, on hybrid notions of identity and on
cultural practices of mimicry which undermine clear-cut
distinctions between acts of domination, acts submission
to power and acts of resistance
 3. Important Developments in Cultural Studies

• Further Developments
• Gender Studies, Queer Studies, media / film studies,
disability studies, age studies
END