In this article Stuart Hall examines the various ways that structuralism has shaped culture studies. Hall begins by discussing how the defination of culture has changed from consisting of texts and artifacts towards a more abstract understanding of culture as a seperate social practice. This abstraction fails to consider the historical and social context of cultural development and doesn't how the dominant structures in a culture repress other other cultural practices.
Marxist structuralism examines cultural practices such as economy or politics as being interactive and believes that all elements of society effect each other. These forms of structuralism explore the impact of human activity similar to Marx's discussion of consciousness and being and believe that every social practice is related and builds off each other to create the culture.
Hall then goes on to discuss in which ways Marxist structuralism is problematic to cultural studies and discusses the theories of Levi-Strauss and Althusser but he provides very little background information and there were too many unfamiliar terms and concepts for me to understand what he was talking about.
Hall notes that one of the most important and influential forms of structionalism on cultural studies is feminist theory. Feminism has forced cultural studies to reevaluate almost every area of study by examining how social formation is impacted by patriarchy and oppression. Feminism has transformed the organizational and theoretical study of culture because it challenges the former intellectual discourses and encourages critical thought.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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I was interesting to me how culture used to be defined by texts. This seemed to me to be a very close-minded view, which contributed to all kinds of discrimination against cultures which emphasized other elements of their lives which were not initially recognized by scientists. The passage about Marx and how structuralism deals with the way that all aspects of society influence each other actually reminded me about our discussions of Durkheim, and his views on the Protestant ethic and how religion is shaped by society. I suppose that the idea that society influences its culture and other aspects is one of those areas where the many theorists have similar views. I do agree that many parts of this passage were hard to follow, simply because I didn’t know enough about the theories of many of the people he discussed. Since he delved right into their views on culture without first discussing their perspectives in general, it was hard to understand from what direction they were coming from. It also was interesting to me to think of the ways that culture has been defined over the years, and how this sociological definition has been influenced by the prevalent sociological viewpoint of the time. This forces one to question the objectivity of any of these theories, and then connects back to the idea that the fact that these views are being questioned is related to Hall’s own culture. As new perspectives, such as feminism, are introduced, the definitions of the study have to change.
I think that culture and socioligy work hand in hand however there are so many ways to define culture that it is hard to describe it in socioligical terms. This chapter covers Marxist views on culture that I personally are not very relivant in the modern era. Although you stil can define class as a culture the clas culture today has changed greatly. I do however think that Stuart's view on structuralism and especially feminism is very important when covering culture. After all the view of female roles has changed alot over the years and is very different in certain cultures.
It struck my interest when Hall talked about Marxist structuralism because so often we see events in our life and never really consider that they are all related to one another. I think the concept that everything we do in society springs from another social practice and this all comes together to create our culture is hard to wrap my mind around. I think there are many things that define a culture and I don't know if necessarily all based upon structuralism. Culture roots back to nature too and also things we don't even realize is affecting our day - to - day life.
It's crazy how the emergence of feminism has restructured cultural studies and how they have to rethink all work. Feminism has played a huge role because of how long females were oppressed. This change has reformed social theory.
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