Reference:
Review Excerpts 'The designation cultural studies has tended to stake out an area of
conflict concerning the very meaning and relation of text and context,
representation and the represented, cultural production and the world in
which such production takes place....Cultural studies has sought to
problematize the borders of textuality itself and, in so doing, to
interrogate the ways in which fields of knowledge are constituted and
organized' (320).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | context |
designation |
knowledge |
meaning |
relation |
representation |
text |
world |
'Central to cultural studies from the outset has been a debate about
the organization of knowledge and the role of the intellectual in the
process of cultural change. This essay focuses on this latter meaning of
the term cultural studies' (321).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | knowledge |
meaning |
role |
term |
'Rather than deny its antinomic status, cultural studies often defines
itself heuristically as a challenge to all existing systems and structures'
(322).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | status |
'The notion of "literature" today is not an ontological category but
one whose historical and institutional evolution will continue to be a
legitimizing and transforming dimension of the critical enterprise'
(322).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | category |
notion |
'Given, then, the protean, anti-institutional, and, finally, heuristic
suggestiveness of the term cultural studies, I should like to proceed by
focusing precisely on its nodal points of contradiction, on the
programmatic debates and innovations that have emerged under its
banner to challenge existing theory and institutional formations in the
name of a more relevant and broadened humanistic study'
(323).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | heuristic |
name |
study |
term |
theory |
'Cultural studies has pushed generally toward a multiperspectivism
that would challenge the notion of one dominant theoretical model as a
"master discourse" at the center of the profession ... that there is one,
"scientific" interpretive model valid for all texts and contexts'
(323).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | discourse |
notion |
'Central to the strategic evolution of cultural criticism has been a
programmatic effort to challenge what it sees as the claim to
universalism at the heart ... of existing literary theory.... Although the
emergence of cultural studies clearly results from a breakdown of one
kind of theoretical generality, the proposed countermodel-- while
accepting, and sometimes welcoming, the impossibility of theoretical
unanimity-- has sought to establish common ground around expanded
notions of literature, rhetoric, textuality, theory, culture, discursive
practice, or interdisciplinarity. And it is at this point, of course, that the
fireworks begin' (324).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | claim | criticism |
culture |
ground |
literary |
rhetoric |
theory |
'The critique heard most often of both Foucault and the new
historicists, by feminists and Marxists alike, concerns precisely their
forfeiture of any position-- their own as critic; that of an autonomous text
or a definable context-- from which and on which to generate contingent
readings, meanings, or value judgments' (327).
Domains: Under construction |
'The critique of essentialism and universalism has been vital in
opening up the study of literature and history to a heterogeneity of theme,
perspective, constituency, medium; and of political, national, and sexual
identities. At the same time, the emergence of once silenced and still
oppressed voices within the critical domain of cultural discourse has
politicized and helped position and certify those identities as part of a
striving for empowerment.... In the area of ethnic studies, African
American, Third World, and Latin American programs have proffered an
internal critique of the ethnocentric Occidentalism of much of humanist
scholarly and curricular organization in academic institutions or, more
modestly, have sought to resituate prevailing discourses and canons in
relation to what and who have been excluded by dominant voices'
(328).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | discourse |
domain |
history |
medium |
occidentalism |
perspective |
relation |
study |
theme |
world |
'The challenge of cultural studies to traditional organizations of
knowledge within existing university structures represents more than just
the addition of yet another innovative critical strategy for humanistic
study. The questions raised touch on fundamental issues concerning how
we perceive our educational mission, what we consider worthy of study
and debate, who we are as cultural and social human beings'
(335).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | knowledge |
strategy |
study |
'What is at the heart of the canon controversy, beyond the concern
with this or that curriculum, are fundamental differences about the role of
culture in modern society and about the responsibilities of academic
intellectuals as critics of society' (336).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | canon | culture |
role |
'In his anthology, Nation and Narration, Homi K. Bhabha raises
fundamental issues about the future of cultural studies in relation to
national identity: What forms of narrative express the ideology of the
modern nation? How do questions of race and gender, class and
colonialism change the boundaries of national identity? How is national
identity itself the construction of a particular historical imaginary?'
(337).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | construction |
gender |
identity |
ideology |
narrative |
nation |
relation |
Last Modified:
July-11-96 16:48:52
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