Transcript Introduction to Anglophone Cultural Studies

Einsicht in den Written Test
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09.02., 16-17 Uhr (Olaf Simons)
10.02., 10-12 Uhr (Annika McPherson)
18.02., 15-16 Uhr (Christina Meyer)
03.03., 10-12 Uhr (Annika McPherson)
03.03., 16-17 Uhr (Olaf Simons)
17.03., 10-12 Uhr (Annika McPherson)
Introduction to Anglophone
Cultural Studies
New Perspectives in
Cultural Studies
Annika McPherson
Or: From “John Bull” to
“Cool Britannia” and beyond
“Britishness” in Public and
Cultural Studies Debates
Aims of this lecture...
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To provide an overview of the (ab)use of terms and
concepts such as “national” and “cultural” identity
To outline a research area of Cultural Studies
– To explain and encourage reflection on the organisation and
configuration of cultural knowledge
– To provide analytical skills for the understanding and
contextualisation of texts, theories, concepts and
terminologies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull
“Cool Britannia”
Politics and Culture
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1920s: images of enduring British culture used to
counterpose national continuity to economic changes
and class conflict
The War Effort: Hierarchy and consensus
Culture as the primary definition of what Britain is
today?
Contexts of the Debate
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1960s Harold Wilson and The Beatles
– Acquaintance with pop culture as an attempt to reacquaint
the younger generation with consensus politics
Thatcher’s anti-consensus politics
– The heritage industry, revisiting Imperial British culture
– rhetoric of national unity and ‘Victorian values’
Major’s ‘back-to-basics’ Britishness
1990s Tony Blair and Noel Gallagher
– Politics: From ideology and economics to lifestyle and
emotion? Does culture now hold sway over politics?
Devolution: establishment of Scottish Parliament, National
Assembly for Wales, Northern Ireland Assembly
A New Britain?
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1996 Labour campaign: New Labour, New Britain
Death of Princess Diana: a new “structure of feeling”
or “mourning sickness”?
Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian:
– “hugs have replaced the stiff upper lip as the physical
gesture of choice”
– New Britain as “less formal and deferential, more open and
personal, more tolerant and optimistic, less macho and
miserable, more diverse -- less straight, more black -- and
less centralised”
Pop Culture:
Continuity and Change
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“Rockers vs Mods, bitter vs lager, Laura Ashley vs Habitat”
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New products are frequently framed and legitimated in reference
to their predecessors: retro-sampling
– 60s vs 90s
– Beatles vs Rolling Stones, Blur vs Oasis
– The British experience of the American century: searching
for certainty in the past?
– cult of the new, rebranding rather than fundamental social
improvement in the face of continuous decline?
Cultural Knowledge
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What kind of knowledge is required for an
understanding of (another) culture?
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studying culture is a hermeneutic process
shifting maps of knowledge
‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ perspectives
exposes our own ‘identities’ and identifications
Cultural Studies aims at the integration of factual material
and the observer’s point of view
– examine ways in which meanings develop and how they
circulate
Kate Fox, Watching the English (2004)
Reflexes
Humour
Moderation
Hyppocrisy
Social
Dis-ease
Outlooks
Empiricism
Eeyorishness
Classconsciousness
Values
Fair Play
Courtesy
Modesty
Traditions, Revisions,
New Perspectives
History and Historiography
– the ‘cultural turn’ in historiography
– ‘tradition’ vs. ‘memory’
History and Culture
– the Past in/and the Present
– Individual, Social, Cultural Memory
Cultural production, distribution and consumption
– the ‘cultural turn’ in literary studies
– texts and contexts
– ‘reading’ culture and cultural products
Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.),
The Invention of Tradition (1992)
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Traditions constructed at a certain time are frequently projected back
into history...
• to enhance consensus and collective identity
• to legitimise hierarchical institutions or social structures
• to introduce people into specific social groups
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How is the past used?
Historical fictions legitimise and solidify norms and structures at times
of social changes
• Problem: ‘invented’ traditions vs. ‘authentic’ customs?
Conflicting Theses:
Nations and Nationalism
Nation states are a result of ...
• Industrialism (e.g. Ernest Gellner)
• Enlightenment, French Revolution (e.g. Elie Kedourie)
• a response to colonial diasporas in the Americas (e.g.
Benedict Anderson: “imagined communities”)
‘National Identity’
• Imaginary identification with the nation state as expressed
through symbols and discourses
• Nations as systems of cultural representation
• National identity is continuously reproduced through
discursive action
Public and Political Rhetoric
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phrases like ‘the British people’ erase differences
at times of crisis the myth of a homogeneous “island people”
battling against the rest of the world resurfaces (e.g. during
WWII)
in sports, advertising, and in humour systems, groups are
constructed and stereotypes employed
cultural (self-)descriptions tend to emerge in comparison to what
“we” are not or who our “enemies” are
“Britishness” between Self and Other
The “island race” vs. the “mongrel nation”?
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Defoe, “The True
Born Englishman”
(1701)
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/
627.html
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Kipling, “The
Islanders”
(1902)
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_islande
rs.htm
Images and Stereotypes
– Suggestion that Britain and her institutions are
naturally separate and superior
– Socially constructed images of Britishness held to
be natural (e.g. the tartan in the national
imagination as an ‘organic’ tradition)
– lists of essential British items
– rhetoric of national unity and ‘Victorian values’
under Thatcher
Stereotypes
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Tracing the emergence and genealogy of
national stereotypes: how did they evolve,
how and why are they sustained?
• E.g. anti-German feeling in the 1996 European football
championship drawing on WWII stereotypes
“Britain”:...what?
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A cluster of islands close to the European mainland
Two large islands with distinctive “Celtic” and
“Germanic” traditions
Four nations
Regional variants
Urban-rural divide, ethnic differences, generational
divisions,...
“Britain”:....when?
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Edward I (1239-1307) sought to create the first ‘Empire’ in
the British Isles
Cromwell’s Commonwealth creates an alliance between
national factions
Integration through trade, marriage and business
(economic and cultural convergence)
1603: Union of the Crowns (James VI/I)
1707: Act of Union (United Kingdom of Great Britain)
“Britain”....who?
Citizenship, Nationality, Ethnicity
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Why is “English” not regarded as an “ethnicity” (Robert Young)?
– “ethnicity” vs. “race”
– English ideas of “race” predated biological race science
– “Saxonism” in the context of European racial science
– myths of national origin: Arthur vs Alfred
– 19th century “Englishness” as a “translatable” global cultural
identity for the diaspora of English descent around the world
– until the late 20th century, “England” was commonly used
synonymously with “Britain”
– “British” as distinguishing between citizenship, nationality
and ethnicity in Scotland
– only recently used as a reference to cultural identity
corresponding to the political entity
“Britishness”...
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Imperial equation of ‘British’ with ‘English’
“The epithets of ‘Englishman’ and ‘Englishwoman came to refer not only to
English people in the strict sense, but also to the Scottish, Welsh and Irish
who also enjoyed the privileges of ‘being British’ in the colonies, and to
settlers and their descendants in the white Dominions” (Graham Dawson).
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The British Empire provided opportunities for upward mobility
“’Britons’ were a pragmatic creation designed to exploit and develop the
new economic and militaristic opportunities of expanding trade and
industrial, technological and scientific revolution. Religious exceptionalism
was used as a tool to legitimize the ‘elect’ status of the nation (in the sense
of being chosen by God)”(Chris Rojek, Brit-Myth: Who Do the British Think
They Are?, 2007).
The End of “Britishness”?
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after WWI nationalist sympathies in decline
campaigns for Irish home rule, devolution and separatism
closer links with the EU
• Welsh, Scottish and Irish arts projects and music groups,
• EU minority language policy
• Literary production, Irish cinema, Welsh television
Multiculturalism and multi-ethnicity
• reconsidering the history of imperial expansion and
colonialism
Devolution
• National identity vs. citizenship
“Britishness”
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1960s/70s: Marxist revisionist history places class struggle at the
centre of national history (E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English
Working Class, 1963)
Linda Colley: British identity was forged in the 18th century by the
state’s imposition of ‘Britishness’ on the population (Protestantism,
industrial revolution, Empire - all driven by a popular psychology of ‘fear
of the Other’) (1992)
Robin Cohen: six “fuzzy frontiers” of British identity (1994):
• The Celtic fringe
• The heritage of the Dominions
• Empire and the non-white Commonwealth
• Atlantic-Anglophone connections
• Emergent European identity
• British notions of the “alien”
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/emeritus/cohenr/research/papers/fuzzy.pdf
The “Britishness Day” Debate
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Proposed by Gordon Brown in 2006
Many of the suggested dates reflect Empire and WWI/II conflicts that
have become problematic in the light of changing attitudes to the
Empire and the ‘multicultural’ composition of British society
Other suggested dates do not reflect ‘Britain’ as a whole but only parts
of the union or of society
– BBC History Vote #1: Magna Carta (15 June 1215), even though
this ‘English’ incident advanced the interests of the private citizen
over the monarch only on grounds of property to feudal lords
– Cromwell’s Commonwealth: a revolution of the landed gentry with
little concern for those without property
– 1832 Reform Act: extended the franchise on grounds of property
and gender (1 in 7 adult men),...
WHO IS INCLUDED/EXCLUDED ?
Claiming “Britishness”:
Black British History
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“Too little attention is given to the
black and multi-ethnic aspects of
British history. The teaching of black
history is often confined to topics
about slavery and post-war
immigration or to Black History
Month” (Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority, 2005)
African soldiers defending Hadrian’s
Wall
constant sizeable presence since
the late 16th century
port cities shaped by trade with
Africa and the Caribbean
Caribbeans in the Royal Air Force
during WWII
The “Windrush generation”
Identity Politics
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Seeking out “new languages” of identity
Acting to change social practices e.g. Of exclusion
from the “national narrative”
Coalitions of interest
New Social Movements
• feminist, ecology, peace, youth movements
• the politics of cultural identities
class, gender, race, ethnicity, nation, age, ...
The Public Debate
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What does “Britishness” mean today and why do we need it?
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A triptych of labels:
– Cool Britannia,
– New Britain,
– The ‘End of Britain’
• Slogans for changes that are (not really) happening?
• Nostalgia for traditional British symbols, but with different
connotations?
A Cultural Studies Approach:
Snapshots of a Moving Picture
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Deconstructing particular icons and
identifying who/what they are, what they
represent, and why people identify with them
“Culture, Nation, Identity”
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Culture as “one of the two or three most complicated words in
the English language”
(Raymond Williams, Keywords)
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“Culture as a term immediately poses a disciplinary problem that
must be solved before the work of understanding ‘it’ can begin”
(John Carlos Rowe, “Introduction, in “Culture” and the Problem of the
Disciplines)
The ‘Academic’ Debate
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From “Identity” to Diversity and Difference
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From National to “Post-National” Contexts
– (increased) interpenetration of cultures
– rise of regionalism
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From “Culture” to the “Transcultural”
“Ethnic Identities”
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Western representations of ‘race’ have created ethnic
identities through novels, theatre, painting, films,
television, documentaries, music and photography
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Ethnic identity is thus largely a “social imaginary”
which divides cultural groups through literary and
visual narrations located in territory, history and
memory
Inter- and Multiculturality
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Traditional concepts of culture emphasize homogeneity and
delineation, structurally suppressing differences and encouraging
separatism and violent conflicts
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18th century: Herder’s concept of culture as the whole of a people’s, society’s or a
nation’s activities
social homogenization, ethnic consolidation, intercultural delimitation
“Volkskultur”: correspondence culture – territory - language
The concepts of interculturality und multiculturalism tackle some of
these ills, but their basic flaw remains the presupposition of cultures as
homogeneous islands or enclosed spheres.
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tolerance, acceptance and avoidance of conflicts, but no real understanding ot
transgression of separating barriers
Multiculturalism
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“affirmative action”?
history and literature curricula
religious holidays
clothing regulations
anti-racist education
anti-mobbing codes of behaviour
“ethnic” festivals and research
funding
services in different languages
bilingual education
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Is there a discernible multicultural
policy on the governmental and
institutional level?
Are there anti-racist and antidisciminatory laws and how are they
implemented?
Do immigration and integration
policies support “pluralistic
assimilation”, i.e. non-discriminatory
interaction of heterogeneous ethnic
groups
Is equality guaranteed in the public
domain (law, politics, economy)
Is “private diversity” practised in the
“private domain”?
Multiculturalism
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Diversity as plurality of
identities
Identity as an assemblage of
customs, practices, and
meanings emphasizing
heritage and a set of shared
traits and experiences
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The “saris, samosas and
steel bands syndrome”?
– Multiculturalism focuses
on superficial
manifestations of culture
and makes them exotic
– Multiculturalism views
different cultures in terms
of how “different” they
are from “English” culture
rather than on their own
terms
Transculturality
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Fernando Ortíz, Contrapunto cubano del
tabaco y azúcar (1940): “transculturation
better expresses the different phases of
the process of transition from one culture
to another” – a substitute to the terms
acculturation and deculturation with an
emphasis on new cultural phenomena
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Transculturality articulates today's
cultural constitution as characterized by
intertwinement.
Cultural diversity arises in a new mode as
a transcultural blend rather than a
juxtaposition of clearly delineated
cultures.
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“The tendency towards transculturality
does not mean that our cultural formation
is becoming the same all over the world.
On the contrary, processes of
globalization and becoming transcultural
imply a great variety of differentiation.
Even if everyone uses the same media, it
does not follow that she or he is making
the same use of these media. And new
media in particular offer considerable
opportunities for variation, selection, and
specification. Cultural webs woven from
the same sources can differ greatly and
be quite specific and even individualistic.
Therefore, the process we are witnessing
is simultaneously a process of unification
and differentiation” (Wolfgang Welsch)
Cultural Studies in ‘Postnational’ and ‘Transcultural’
contexts...
...question national cultures (seen as a result of colonialist and
imperialist structures of modern Europe)
...question romantic-aesthetic notions of culture (seen as a
result of disciplinary strategies under the rule of modern
nation states)
...question the reduction of ‘culture’ to refer only to meaning
and representation
...display a specific relationship between context, knowledge
and power
Research Questions
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What specificities need to be taken into account when
discussing “multiculturalism” in the UK?
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From which angles do we need to look at the debates on
“Britishness”?
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What kind of “identity politics” are relevant in this debate?
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If “transculturality” better reflects societies today, should we give
up attempts to create “multicultural” policies? Why/ why not?
Sources
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Andrew Calcutt, Brit Cult: An A-Z of British Pop Culture (London: Prion Books,
2000).
Robert J.C. Young, The Idea of English Ethnicity (London: Blackwell, 2008).
Anthony Easthope, Englishness and National Culture (London and New York:
Routledge, 1999).
Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2004).
Susan Bassnett, Studying British Cultures: An Introduction (London and New
York: Routledge, 2003).
David Morley and Kevin Robins, British Cultural Studies: Geography, Nationality,
and Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
David Dabydeen, John Gilmore, Cecily Jones, eds., The Oxford Companion to
Black British History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Wolfgang Welsch, “Transculturality – the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today”, in:
Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World. Ed. Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash.
London 1999, S. 194-213.