In "The Need for Cultural Studies...," Giroux et al. argue for a cultural studies that centers power and that does not de-link description from prescription. Cultural studies should not be a ‘storehouse’ or accumulation of knowledge, nor should it simply provide students 'access' to culture or attempt to devise a new dominant culture they write. What does it look like to 'hierarchicalize' culture (which the authors advise against) versus to think relationally about the formation of cultural hierarchies (as the authors advise)?
In "The Meaning of New Times," Hall discusses the core role that cultural and social life plays in the "New Times" -- variously classified as postfordism, postmodernism, etc. These 'post-'s are all ways, Hall says, of trying to understand "this dramatic, even brutal, resumption of the link between modernity and capitalism." What relationship between capitalism, socialism, and modernity is Hall trying to clarify and call for? According to Hall, are the tenets of modernity linked in any pre-determined way to a way of organizing economy? Is Hall calling for an embrace of modernity because there is no going back or because he finds there is something good about modernity (e.g., its 'revolutionary impulse')?
(I am reminded here of the philosopher Charles Mills' racial contract theory, which is based on an embrace of liberalism's stated values and argues that these values are distorted by the ongoing projects of colonialism, racial exploitation, capitalism, etc. Hall seems to similarly be calling for a true realization of the kinds of things modernity/liberalism say they do, but have only ever really used as ideological justifications for violence.)
In "A Thief in the Night," Brunsdon reflects on a particular moment in the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies when women at the Center formed a women-only group. In telling this story, Brunsdon emphasizes that these theoretical disputes are always material, composed of––as Hall put it––the slamming of doors. As I understand it, Brunsdon interprets Hall's description of the feminists as coming in and "crapping on cultural studies" not as disapproval, but as a consideration of the actual material implications and discomforts that come from making arguments that challenge the vary site in which the arguments are formed. Brunsdon concludes by characterizing this piece as "occupy[ing] a position that almost isn’t there." This piece brings up some points about the actual work of scholarship and especially intellectual collaboration, including the ways labor's organization orients toward different goals (public access vs. academic achievement). I wonder if folks have examples of how intellectual labor is organized here––or in their experiences––to serve different sorts of goals and how this has changed in the past decade or so (e.g., with academic gatherings and discussions on public-facing social media platforms).
Reading these texts as someone brand new to cultural studies, I find a lot of
overlap with science studies, which I am more familiar with. Science
studies also calls for a focus on interested actors (whether humans or
comets or scallops or viruses) and how these actors attempt to translate
other interests into their own or recruit others as allies to their
interests. It seems to me a key difference is that science studies shies
away from prescriptive calls or manifestos about the ultimate goal of
science studies, whereas the authors explicitly call here for what they
hope cultural studies to do in the world. Science studies at the moment seems to have no such
clarity and I am curious to look into whether cultural studies has taken up science as a topic of analysis.
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