Five Types of Cultural Studies

This blog is about five types of Cultural studies given by Prof. Dilip Barad sir as a part of thinking activity.

1. Your understanding of British Cultural Materialism  in your own words?

Cultural studies in British culture referred to as British Cultural Materialism which study the cultural artefacts of British Culture. Matthew Arnold took a job to redefine the 'givens' of British culture. There are two pathbreaker works which enable a way to further study in British culture. Two pioneers are…

• Claude Levi Strauss's influence moved British thinkers to determine culture to Primitive people.
• Raymond William also emphasizes culture for Working class people as well as the elite.

To understand British Cultural Materialism it has become important to know how power structure affects cultural materialism with the passing of time. British Empire, where the sun never sets, left the previous ideology to know the socio and political reality of British Empire…

• First, led back to the past and the feudal Hierarchies that ordered community in the past. This fact acted as a preserver of the past.
• Other tranjectory, which move forward to the future, Socialist Utopia, that manifest on the distinction between labour and leisure classes and make transformation of status.

2. What is the contribution of Michel Foucault's New Historicism?

Foucault's idea on New Historicism is based on "Totalizing '', by that he means to observe the function of culture in literary text in its totality. For that he gave the term Episteme. According to him we cannot know the governing idea of past and present. 

"History itself is a form of oppression."

To know the accuracy of history one should inquire into the Episteme of Power and Knowledge. Methods of expression are also governed by power and modern age also is governed by complex master narrative, which can be seen as the narrative of earlier generations. So, for Michel Foucault New Historicism is all about to read the Fault Lines in history.

3. How can New Historicist help in answering questions which are raised against Laputa episode in Gulliver's Travels?

As Michael Warner pointed out the aim of New Historicism is….

"The Text is historical and

 History is Textual"

So, When we are analysing any work of Art to understand it properly there is a need to read the historical events, presented directly or indirectly in work. Michael Foucault said that one may have Idea of History, If we don't know the governing ideas of the past or the present we should not imagine that we even have a "Center" for mapping the "real."

So, When we study Gulliver's Travels, Part in which Laputa is portrayed as "The whore" then the study of New-Historicism may help us to pointed  why Laputa is "The Flying Island and Female Anatomy: Gynecology and power in 'Gulliver's Travels.' So Bruce describes that there is a trend towards the education of midwives. So, it is male establishment, that women characters are like this. The Queen of Brobdingnag is on the table and she is looking towards other women with breast tumours. The Floating physical structure of Laputa is like a Uterus or Vagina. So from the study of history we get the idea of why Laputa is represented as the Whore. As Bruce remarks that….

"It is which engenders the name of the Island in a paradigmatic instance of misogyny, the achievement of male control over female body itself renders that body the whore-Laputa."

4. Exemplify four types of analysis of popular culture. Apply it on cultural artefacts?

Before the 1960s popular culture was not studied by academics, but the changing dynamics in post-modernism include popular culture as a study of film studies, anthropology, history, women's studies. And examine how the idea of race, gender, class, age, sexuality are shaped and reshaped in popular culture.

There are mainly four kinds of analysis to study popular culture….

Production Analysis

Textual Analysis

Audience Analysis

Historical Analysis

These analyses emphasize more on the social meaning of the text rather than the meaning of the text. The core idea of the analysis is to how the text creates a particular subject position or identities for those who use these cultural artifacts.

Production Analysis ask the questions like who owns the media, who create text and why? For what Product is seMlling- profit or money? Textual Analysis examines how specific works of Popular Culture create meaning. Audience Analysis examines how people from different cultures costumes different meanings for the same text. Historical Analysis inquire  how these three dimensions changes with the passing of time.

5. Difference between Modernism and Postmodernism, illustrate with example?

Postmodernism is a reaction against Modernism. Approximately Modernism took place during 1800 to 1900. While After World war - 2 a new shift coming towards Postmodernism. There are several differences between Modernism and Postmodernism…

Modernism	Postmodernism
Modernists are in a search of Ultimate Truth, an abstract truth of life.	Postmodernists are not believing in any kind of Universal truth.
Modernism is all about pursuing Scientific approach, they are more rational and searching for reason for advancement of life.	Post Modernism believed in irrationality of thoughts and applied unscientific approach. They questioned the rationality of Modernism.
Modernists are more influenced to create Utopian society with the vision of idealism and Rationality.	Post Modernists have suspicious nature with the concept of Scepticism that certain truths are not true at all.
Modernism presented a fragmented view of human history but still they are optimist rather than pessimist and hope is at the center.	Post Modernism celebrates the activity of fragmentation.

Modernism is kind of backward in that there is a significance of the past and we can learn much from the past and could be beneficial for the present also.	Postmodernists are totally against Modernist belief and emphasis more on present rather than past. Context is difference so there is no relevance of past events in present.
They used to take a distance from political interference.	Postmodernists are more political than modernists.

Example

Modernism focuses more on the interiority rather than exteriority. Best example of it may be given of the novel of "Stream Of Consciousness" which developed the character with his own belief about their own. While postModernism celebrated the exteriority of text. And also developed multiple perspectives and multiple ways to see single text.

"Polytechnic" by Mahendrasingh Parmar sir is the best example of Postmodernism, which celebrates fragmentation and also not providing clearcut perception. It Focuses on Multiple issues like Women Exploitation to Political Corruption and Women suffering to the frames of Patriarchal Society. And along with that one common problem is lack of amenities of Bathrooms and Latrines.

Thanks.....