CLTR 1001: Introduction to CLTR 1001: Introduction to

the Study of Culturethe Study of Culture

1.What is Culture?2.What is Cultural

Studies?3.What is popular

Culture?

Definition of CultureDefinition of CultureThe word Culture is thought to be ‘one of the most complicated words in the English Language’. (Raymond Williams)

Kluckholn and Kroeber have identified some 200 meanings – Let’s consider that for a moment!!!

Definition Cont’dDefinition Cont’d

Culture derives from the latin word cultura which stems from colere: 'to cultivate'.

And of course – we cultivate crops but also …..

Proponents of CultureProponents of Culture

E. B. Tyler – ‘Culture is that complex whole including knowledge, belief, morals, law, customs, and habits acquired by man’

Margaret Mead – ‘Culture is the learned behaviour of a society’

Proponents of Culture Proponents of Culture Cont’dCont’d

Clifford Geertz – ‘Culture refers to webs of significance we create, eg. in the ensemble of stories we tell ourselves’

And, others think culture is just in the mind.

Definitions from Founding Definitions from Founding FathersFathersA key thinker is Raymond Williams and he suggests three broad definitions of culture –

1.A general process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development; 2.A particular way of life whether of a people or group;3.The works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity out of which meaning is produced.

Digging deep into ‘culture’Digging deep into ‘culture’Culture is also bound up or closely

associated with categories such as –

Popular cultureIdeology Hegemony

Popular CulturePopular CultureThere are many definitions of popular

culture even though it is considered to be an empty conceptual category–

“culture that is widely favoured or liked by many people”

“culture that is left over after we have decided what is high culture” – here it is seen as a residual category

Culture which “originates from the people” - “folk culture”

Popular Culture Cont’dPopular Culture Cont’d

“popular culture is substandard culture” – here there is a value judgement, taste, distinction which comes down to exclusivity in the choice of what is determined as high (creative culture based on ‘real work’) versus low culture which is from the masses – so we get “mass culture” / mass-produced commercial culture for mass consumption”

Popular CulturePopular Culture

Finally, popular culture can be defined in terms of Antonio Gramsci’s political analysis which brings into focus the concept of hegemony.

What is hegemony? It is defined as the way in which dominant groups in society through a process of intellectual and moral leadership win the consent of the subordinate groups in society.

Popular Culture Defined for Popular Culture Defined for Cultural StudiesCultural Studies

Based on Gramsci’s work we can contend that -

“popular culture is a site of struggle and contestation between the forces of ‘resistance’ by subordinate groups in society, and the forces of ‘incorporation’ of dominant groups in society.

Popular Culture & Popular Culture & HegemonyHegemony

Popular culture in this definition is therefore not imposed culture – not that which you are ‘coerced’ into accepting, rather it is the ‘terrain of exchange between the two groups, marked by resistance and incorporation

What is Ideology?What is Ideology?

Ideology is a ‘critical concept’ for understanding culture, popular culture, and also the study of culture that leads to the development of Cultural Studies

Turner considers that British Cultural Studies could easily have been termed ‘ideological studies’

In fact ideology is sometimes used interchangeably with culture

Ideology Cont’dIdeology Cont’dLike culture, ideology has many

competing meaningsIdeology refers to a ‘systematic body

of ideas articulated by a particular group of people (for eg. we can speak of the ideology of a political party or of an organization)

And, ideology is often defined to suggest some kind of masking, distortion or concealment.

Ideology as HegemonyIdeology as HegemonyIdeology is seen as part of the

‘superstructural elements’ of a society where ‘the way a society organizes the means of production will determine the type of culture that society produces’ (Marx). The nature of this relationship between those who produce culture and those who own the means of production is what is mediated by or determined by ideology.

““Ideology supports the Ideology supports the interest of the dominant interest of the dominant group who socially, group who socially, politically, economically politically, economically and culturally benefit and culturally benefit from the economic from the economic organization of society.”organization of society.”