Cultural Studies

 Arising from the social turmoil of the 1960s, cultural studies is an academic discipline which combines political economy, communication, sociology, social theory, literary theory, media theory, film studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy, art, history, criticism etc; to study cultural phenomenon in various societies. Cultural Studies researches often focus on how a particular phenomenon relates matters of ideology, nationality, ethnicity, social class and gender.

Discussion on Cultural Studies have gained currency with the publication of Richard Hoggart's 'Use of Literacy' and Raymond Williams 'Culture and Society'. Since culture is now considered as the source of art and literature, cultural criticism has gained ground, and therefore Raymond William's term "cultural materialism", Stephen Greenblatt's "cultural poetics" and Bakhtin's term "cultural prosaic", have been significant in the field of Cultural Studies and cultural criticism.

Cultural studies is interested in the process by which power relations organize cultural artefacts. Cultural Studies approaches 1. transcend the confines a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history. 2. are politically engaged. 3. reject the distinction between "high" and "low" art or "elite" and "popular" culture. 4. analyze not only the cultural works but also the means of production.

Cultural Studies facilitated analysis of the ways in which subaltern groups actively resist and respond to political and economic domination. It believes that we cannot "read" cultural artefacts only within the aesthetic realm, rather they must be studied within social and material perspectives. In Cultural Studies, representation is a key concept and denotes a language in which all objects and relationship get defined, a language related to issues of class, power and ideology, and situated within the context of  "discourse". Cultural Studies is interested in lifestyle because lifestyle 1. is about everyday life. 2. defines identity. 3. influences social relations. 4. bestows meaning and value to artefacts in a culture. In India, after economic liberalization, consumption has been seen as a maker of identity.  


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