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Cultural Studies and it’s Four Goals
Prepared by- Divya Choudhary
Course- M.A.
Sem- 2
Paper no. - 8
Paper name- Cultural Studies
Enrolment no. - PG15101007
Batch- 2015-17
Email id- choudharydivya400@gmail.com
Submitted to- Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
INTRODUCTION
“CULTURAL STUDIES”
The word “culture” itself it so difficult to
pin down, “cultural studies” is hard to define. As we also the case in chapter
8 with Elaine Showalter’s “cultural” model of feminine difference.”Cultural
studies “is not so much a discrete approach at all, but rather a set of
practices. As Patrick Brantinger has pointed out, cultural studies in not ‘a
tightly coherent, unified movement with a fixed agenda”. But a loosely coherent
group of tendencies, issues, and question.” Before knowing about Cultural Studies, we
should know what culture is. Culture is a anthropology, encompassing the range
of human phenomena that cannot be directly attributed to genetic inheritance.
The term culture in American anthropology had two meanings-
1
The evolved to classify
and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and creatively.
2 The
distinct ways that people live, differently, classified and represent their
experiences and acted creatively.
Culture is central to
the way we view, experience and engage with all aspects of our lives and the
world around us. Even our definitions are shaped by the historical, political,
social and cultural contexts in which we live. Culture is the mode of
generating meanings and ideas. This mode of negotiation under which meanings
are generated by power relations. Culture is a social phenomenon which tends to
regularate the mindset and behavior of people which is set on ancient rules and
regularities and experiences. Culture is the identity of particular society and
it is the mirror of the society. Culture in a simple way can be said as a
particular way of life. Tradition, customs, rules and regulations, norms, artifacts
(signs), religions, communities, material things, journey of 'Man' from caves
to present day civilization are also culture.
Opposite of nature is
culture. Nature is outside and the moment Man enters, it becomes culture.
Whatever which is not nature is culture. All the activities that are done
between people on the piece of land and with the other people, culture is the
entire range of activities that all the people of the society do. Culture deals
with identity. For example, Mahatma Gandhi is the icon of India.
Nature is something which is outside the control of human
beings and culture is the introduction of what humans do and think. Culture is
the great help out of our present difficulties; Culture beings the pursuit of
our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which has
been thought and said in the world: and through his knowledge, turning of
stream of fresh and free thoughts upon our stock notions and habits, which we
follow but mechanically. When the things are done by elite group, it is called
Culture and when the same things are done by minority group, it s called
sub-culture. Elite culture controls meanings because it controls the terms of
the debate. Non-elite views on life and art are rejected as 'Tasteless',
'useless' or 'even stupid' by the elite. Culture is one of the two or three
terms to define. It is an umbrella term. Literature is one of its disciplines.
It cannot be understood by one discipline. We are multi-disciplinary. Every
discipline studies culture but in a different way.
First cultural studies transcend the confines of a PARTICULAR DISCIPLINE such as literary
criticism or history.
Second cultural studies are politically engaged.
Third cultural studies denies the separation of “HIGH”AND “LOW”
OR elite and popular culture.
Forth cultural studies analyze not only the cultural work, but
also the means of production.
FIRST
GOAL
“Cultural studies
transcend the confine of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or
history. “practiced in such journal as critical inquiry , representations, and
boundary 2 , cultural studies involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of
a text – for example Italian opera, a Latino telenovela, the architectural
styles of prisons, body piercing and drawing conclusion about the change in
textual phenomena over time.
Cultural studies are
not necessarily about literature in the traditional sense or even about “art”.
In their introduction to cultural studies, editors Lawrence gross berg, Cary nelson,
and Paula treichler emphasize that the intellectual promise of cultural studies
lies in the attempts to “cut across diverse social and political interests and
address many of the struggles within the current scene.”
Intellectual works are
not limited by their own “borders” as single texts, historical problems or disciplines,
and the critic’s own personal connections to what is being analyzed may also be
described.
Henty Giroux and
others write in their Dalhousie review manifesto that cultural studies
practitioners are “resisting intellectuals” who see what they do as “an emancipator
project.” Because it erodes the traditional disciplinary divisions in most
institutions of higher education.
SECOND
GOAL
“Cultural studies are political engaged”
cultural critics see them as “oppositional” not only within their own
disciplines but too many of the power structures of society at large. They
question inequalities within power structures and seek to discover models for
restructuring relationship a many dominant and “minority” or “subaltern”
discourses. Because meaning and individual subjectivity are culturally
constructed, they can thus be reconstructed. Such a notion, taken to a
philosophical extreme, denies the qutonomy of the individual, whether an actual
person or a character in literature, a rebuttal of the traditional humanistic
“great man” or “great book” theory, and a relocation of aesthetics and cultural
from the ideal realms of taste and sensibility, into the arena of a whole society’s
everyday life as it is constructed.
THIRD
GOAL
“Cultural studies deny the separation of high
and low or elite and popular culture might hear
someone remark at the symphony or art museum: “I came here to get a little
culture”.
Being
a “cultured” person used to mean being acquainted with “highbrow” art and
intellectual pursuits. But isn’t culture also to be found with a pair of
tickets to a rock concert?
Cultural
critics’ today work to transfer the term culture to include mass culture,
whether popular, folk, or urban. Following theorists jean baudrillard and Andréa’s
huyssen, cultural critics argue that after world war ii the distinctions among
high , low and mass culture collapsed , and they cite other theorists such as Pierre
boundary and dick hedbige on how “good taste” only reflects prevailing social,
economic and political power bases. For example, the images of India that were
circulated during the colonial rule of the British raj by writes like by Rudyard
Kipling seem innocent , but revel and entrenched imperialist argument for white
superiority and worldwide domination of other races, especially Asians. But
race along was not the issue for the British raj: money was also a deciding
factor. Thus, drawing also upon the ideas of French historian Michel de Certeau,
cultural critics examine.
“The practice of every life”
Studying literature as an anthropologist
would, as a
Phenomenon of culture, including a
culture’s economy,
Rather than determining which the “best” works
are
Produced, culture critics describe what is
produced and
How carious productions relate to one another.
They alms Reveal the political, economic reasons why a certain
Cultural product is move valued at certain
times then
others.
FORTH
GOAL
“Cultural studies
analyze not only the cultural work, but also the means of production.
Marxist critics have
long recognized the importance of such par literary questions as these: who
supports a given artist? Who publishes his or her books, and how are these
books distributed? Who buys books? For those matters, who is literate and who
is not? A well – known analysis of literary production is Janice radway’s study
of the American romance novel and its readers. Reading the romance women, patriarchy
and popular literature, which demonstrates the textual effects of the
publishing industry’s decision about books that will minimize its financial
risks. Another contribution is the collection reading in America, edited by Cathy
n. Davidson, which includes essays on literacy and gender in colonial new England urban
magazine audiences in eighteenth century New York city; the impact upon reading
such technical innovations as cheaper eyeglasses, electric lights, and trains;
the book of the month club; and how writers and texts go through fluctuations
of popularity and canonicity. These studies help up recognize that literature
dose not occur in a space separate from other concerns of our lives.
Cultural studies thus join subjectivity that is, cultural in relation to individual
lives- with engagement, a direct approach to attacking social ills. Though
cultural studies practitioners deny “humanism or “the humanities” as universal
categories, they strive for what they might call “social reason”, which often (closely)
resembles the goals and values of humanistic and democratic ideals.
Year 2050,
the United States will be what demographers call a
"majority-minority" population; that is, the present numerical
majority of "white", "Caucasian", and "Anglo"-
Americans will be the minority, particularly with the dramatically increasing
numbers of Latina /o residents, mostly Mexican Americans. As Gerald Graff and
James Phelan observe, "It is a common prediction that the culture of the
next century will put a premium on people's ability to deal productively with
conflict and cultural difference. Learning by controversy is sound training for
citizenship in that future".
Poetic process and the process of Depersonalization
Prepared by- Divya Choudhary
Course- M.A.
Sem- 2
Paper no. - 7
Paper name- Literary Theory and Criticism
Enrollment no. - PG15101007
Batch- 2015-17
Email id- choudharydivya400@gmail.com
Submitted to- Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
INTRODUCTION
In Tradition and
Individual Talent, he propounded the doctrine that poetry should be impersonal
and free itself from Romantic practices, ‘the progress of an author is a
continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality’. He sees that
in this depersonalization, the art approaches science. For Eliot, emotions in
poetry must be depersonalized. Artistic self-effacement is essential for great
artistic work..
He opposed Coleridge who says that a worth of
a poet is judged by his personal impressions and feelings. Eliot says that
impressionism is not a safe guide. A poet in the present must be judged with
reference to the poets in the past. Comparison and analysis are the important
tools for a critic. The critic must see whether there is a fusion of thought
and feeling in the poet, depersonalized his emotions and whether he has the
sense of tradition. So these are the objective standards. But what emotion is
Eliot talking of? He speaks against the poet’s emotions. Art, too has emotions;
but different from those of the artist and this difference is to be maintained
for a great work of art. Eliot says:
“The difference between art and the event is always absolute”
His theory of
impersonality goes even further when he criticizes Wordsworth’s view that
poetry has its, Origin in emotions recollected in tranquility”. In his view
poetry is an organization of different concepts and for such organization to
take place perfect objectivity on the part of the poet is essential. There is
no question of the poet expressing his personal emotions. To Eliot, The poet’s
emotions and passions must be depersonalized; he must be as impersonal and
objective as a scientist. The personality of the artist is not important:
important thing is his sense of tradition; A good poem is a living whole of all
the poetry that has ever been written. The poet must forget his personal joys
and sorrows, and be absorbed in acquiring a sense of tradition and expressing
it in his poetry. Thus the poet’s personality is merely a medium, having the
same significance as a catalytic agent, or a receptacle in which chemical
reaction takes place. That is why the poet Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion,
but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an
escape from personality. Eliot does not deny personality or emotion to the
poet. Only, he must depersonalize his emotions. There should be an extinction
of his personality. This impersonality can be achieved only when the poet
surrenders himself completely to the work that is to be done. Eliot asserts:
“The emotion of art is impersonal.
And the poet cannot reach this ‘impersonality without surrendering himself wholly
to the work”
Eliot compares the
poet’s mind to a jar or receptacle in which are stored numberless feelings,
emotions etc., which remain there in an unorganized and chaotic form till, “all
the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.”
Thus poetry is organization rather than inspiration. And the greatness of a
poem does not depend upon the greatness of, or even the intensity of, the
emotions, which are the components of the poem, but upon the intensity of the
process of poetic composition. Just as a chemical reaction takes place under
pressure, so also intensity is indeed for the fusion of emotions into a single
whole. The more intense the poetic process, the greater the poem. There
is always a difference between the artistic emotion and the personal emotion of
the poet. The poet has no personality to express, he is merely a medium in
which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways.
Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may find no place
in his poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may have no
significance for the man.
Poetic Process
In Tradition and Individual Talent, Eliot propounded the
doctrine that poetry should be impersonal and free itself from Romantic
practices, 'the progress of an author is a continual self-sacrifice, a
continual extinction of personality'. Eliot says that impressionism is not a
safe guide. A poet in the present must be judged with reference to the poets in
the past. The critic must see whether there is a fusion of thoughts and
feelings in the poet depersonalized his emotions and whether he has the sense
of tradition. So these are the objective standards.
In the poetic process there is only concentration of a
number of experiences and new things result from this concentration. And this
process of concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate; it is a passive
one. In the beginning, his self, his individuality, may assert itself, but as
his powers mature there must be greater and greater extinction of personality.
He must acquire greater and greater objectivity. He compares the mind of the
poet to a catalyst and the in the presence of a catalyst alone, so also the
poet's mind is the catalic agent for combining different emotions into
something new. Eliot speaks of John Keats;
"The ode of Keats contain a number of feelings which have
nothing particular to do with the nightingale, but which the nightingale,
partly perhaps because of its attractive name, and partly because of its reputation,
served to bring together".
Thus, the difference between art and emotion is always
absolute. The poet has no personality to express, he is merely a medium in
which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways.
According to Eliot, two kinds of constituents go into the making of a poem; the
personal elements, i.e. the feelings and emotions or the poet, and the
impersonal elements, i.e. the 'traditional', the accumulated knowledge and
wisdom of the past, which are acquired by the poet. These two elements interact
and fuse together to form a new thing, which we call a poem. It is the mistaken
notion that the poet must express new emotions that results in much
eccentricity in poetry. That is why, Eliot says:
"His particular emotions may be
Simple, or crude, or flat".
Theory of
Depersonalization
This is the second part of his essay. The artist or the poet
adopts the process of depersonalization, which is "a continual surrender
of him as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress
of an artist is a continual self sacrifice, a continual extinct of
personality". Here in this essay, Eliot gives importance to poetry rather
than the poet which is depersonalization. Depersonalization is a dream like
feeling of being disengaged from your surroundings where they seem "less
real" than they should. Depersonalization as a "disturbing sense of
being's separate from oneself, observing oneself as if from outside, feeling
like a robot or automaton". Theory of depersonalization consists self
sacrifice and extinction of personality.
"The more perfect the artist, the completely separate in
him will be men who suffer and the mind which creates".
General meaning of this can be- the action of diverging
someone o something of human characteristics or individuality psychiatry meaning,
a state which one's thought and feeling
seem unreal or not belong to oneself. Eliot compares it to a chemical process.
When two gases Oxygen and Sulphur dioxide are mixed in the presence of a
filament of platinum (can also be called mind of poet), they form sulphurous
acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present, nevertheless
the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum and the platinum itself is
apparently unaffected; has remained inert, neutral and unchanged. Mind of the
poet is the shred of platinum. The more perfect the artist, the more completely
separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates the more
perfectly the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material. Poetry
is not a turning loose of emotions, but an escape from personality. Only those
who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from
these things.
People who
suffer from severe depersonalization say that it feels as if they are watching
themselves at from a distance without having the sense of complete control.
Even though depersonalization is harmless, it can be extremely disturbing for
the person experiencing it. Symptoms of depersonalization order-
- Feeling as if you are watching yourself as an observer- as
if you are watching your life from a distance.
-feeling that you are not in a control of your actions.
- Feeling disconnected from your body.
- Out-of-body experiences.
- feeling as though you are in a dream.
- feeling that everything around you is unreal.
- being able to recognize that these are only feelings and
not reality.
Eliot does not deny personality or emotion to the poet only,
he must depersonalize his emotions. There should be exit notion of his
personality. This impersonality can be achieved only when the poet surrenders
himself completely to the work i.e. to be done and the poet can be known what
is to be done.
Historical
Sense
Eliot finds not contradictory but supplementary elements in
the co-relationship of the past and the present. He expresses his views as
follows:
"No
poet, no artist of any art has his complete meaning alone. His significance,
his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and
artists. You cannot value him alone: you must set him, for contrast and
comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely
historical criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall
cohere, is not one-sided, what happens when a new work of art is created is
something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which precede it.
The existing monuments from an ideal order among themselves, which is modified
by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them.
Eliot says that historical sense involves a perception, not
only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense
compels a man to write not merely with his own generation with his bones, but
with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within
it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence
and composes a simultaneous order.
In Eliot's sense, to be traditional means to be conscious of
the main current of art and poetry. Eliot writes,
"The difference between the present and the past is
that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and too an
extent which the past's awareness of itself cannot show".
Eliot says that there is a distinction between knowledge and
pedantry.
"Some can absorb knowledge; the tardier must sweat for
it. Shakespeare acquired more essential histories from Plutarch than most men
could from the whole British Museum".
Conclusion
To
conclude, Harold Bloom presents a conception of tradition that differs from
that Eliot. Whereas Eliot believes that the great poet is faithful to his
predecessors and evolves in a concordant manner, Bloom according to his theory
of ‘anxiety of influence envisions the strong poet to engage in a much more
aggressive and tumultuous rebellion against tradition’
In
1964, his last year, Eliot published
in a reprint of the use of poetry and the use of criticism, a series
of lectures he gave at Harvard university in 1932 and 1933, a new
preface in which he called “Tradition
and the Individual talent” the most juvenile of his essays.
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