1 / 9

Chapter 9: Cultural Studies

Chapter 9: Cultural Studies. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. I. Defining Cultural Studies. “Culture” is hard to define and so is “cultural studies” It is not so much a discrete approach as a set of practices influenced by many fields

rimona
Download Presentation

Chapter 9: Cultural Studies

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Chapter 9: Cultural Studies A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature

  2. I. Defining Cultural Studies • “Culture” is hard to define and so is “cultural studies” • It is not so much a discrete approach as a set of practices influenced by many fields • It concentrates on social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and alienation • Four goals: (1) transcending confines of a particular discipline, (2) remaining politically engaged, (3) denying the separation of high and low culture, and (4) analyzing the means of production as well as product • Joins subjectivity to engagement

  3. II. U.S. Ethnic Studies A. African American Writers • Gates: uses “race” in quotation marks as “a dangerous trope” • The Other • Du Bois: double-consciousness

  4. II. U.S. Ethnic Studies A. African American Writers (cont’d) • Sollors, Appiah, Morrison • African American women writers versus male protest writers • Irony, autobiography, naturalism, tragedy • Myth of persecuted people (cf Hebrews) • Periods of Colonial, Antebellum, Reconstruction, pre-World War II, Harlem Renaissance, Naturalism and Modernism, Contemporary

  5. II. U.S. Ethnic Studies B. Latina/o Writers • Problem of naming Latina/os • Gender differences • History of the United States and Mexico • Anzaldúa; code-switching; mestizaje • La Virgen, La Malinche, La Llorona

  6. II. U.S. Ethnic Studies C. Native American Literatures • Oral versus written traditions, traditional versus mainstream • ritual, performance, community; art not disconnected from everyday life • Occom, Apess, Hopkins, Mournin Dove, Zitkala-a, Erdrich, Harjo

  7. II. U.S. Ethnic Studies D. Asian American Writers • Autobiography • Immigrant literature (paper sons and picture brides) • Women overshadow men • Far, Kingston, Tan, new Pacific voices

  8. III. Postmodernism and Popular Culture A. Postmodernism • Modernist literature recognized fragmentation and alienation of life but mourned them; postmodernism celebrates them • Disillusionment with institutions; irony, ambiguity, self-conscious play of meanings, parody, pastiche; suspicion and subversion of “master narratives” • Eagleton: postmodernism offers a “depthless, decentered, ungrounded, self-reflexive, playful, derivative, unstable, indeterminate, eclectic, pluralistic” meaning • Eco: awareness of “the already said” • Baudrillard: “simulacra” of “real” objects

  9. III. Postmodernism and Popular Culture B. Popular Culture • Production • Textual • Audience • Historical analyses • “Subject-positions”

More Related