HANDOUT ON CULTURAL STUDIES: BERUBE, FISKE, HALL
What's here
1. Academics are usually regarded (even by academics) as marginal figures, distant from the "real world," locked in an "ivory tower." Berube has argued that academics must not accept their own marginalization: he's urged them to address larger and more diverse audiences, and he's insisted that they must take on the challenge of "popularizing" their work. Do you think that Berube's article on cultural studies, which first appeared in the Village Voice, would help to convince the public (or at least a certain hip subsection of the public) that the academy is not such a bad place after all?
2. How, according to Berube, is the Marxism of cultural studies different from earlier versions of Marxist theory? Do you see why Berube refers to the Marxism of cultural studies as "Marxism Lite"?
3. When Berube says that "cultural studies in the UK has long since demonstrated its social utility" (143), what exactly does he have in mind? Why does he think that there's a social (and dare I say political) pay-off to doing cultural studies? Do you agree with his assertion that there's a pay-off, or are you still a little skeptical?
4. Why was Berube so frustrated with the questions asked by some folks attending the conference? Why does he think that those questions revealed a kind of academic "self-loathing" (158)? (As you read the Q-and-A sessions following the talks by Fiske and Hall, see if you come to share any of his frustrations.)
1. Can you get a sense of what Fiske is arguing against? What do you make of his comments about "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to the study of "everyday life"? Which approach does he prefer, and what does he think is wrong with the other one? (By the way, I think, it's always wise to see what a writer is arguing against. If you can imagine a dialogic context for the argument you're reading, you'll have a much better chance of understanding it.)
2. Fiske draws heavily from the work of two more recent French thinkers: Pierre Bourdieu and Michel de Certeau. What can you infer about the work, the major ideas, of these two thinkers? How do they seem to differ from Derrida and Foucault? And why, finally, do some of Fiske's listeners have so much trouble with Bourdieu's notion of the "habitus"?
3. Do you agree with one of Fiske's listeners, who complains about the discrepancy between what Fiske "seeks to promote" and what he "actually does" (169)? What do you think of Fiske's response to that listener? And finally, do you see any way to avoid the problems that the listener is pointing out?
1. What does Hall have in common with Fiske, and where does he differ from Fiske? On the basis of these essays by Hall and Fiske, what generalizations would you feel comfortable making about cultural studies?
2. What is the point of Hall's discussion of the relationship between cultural studies and Marxism (279-81)? Do you agree with Hall's assertion that "the only theory worth having is that which you have to fight off, not that which you speak with profound fluency" (280)? In what ways, and for what reasons, did cultural studies have to "fight off" Marxism?
3. Hall has a lot to say about Antonio Gramsci (see, for example, 280-1). What can you infer about Gramsci from Hall's discussion of him? What do you suppose Hall (and Gramsci) have in mind when they speak about "organic intellectuals"?
4. On 283, Hall makes it very clear that he wants to disavow "anti-theoretical populism," which he suggests has sometimes been popular within the discipline of cultural studies. What, first of all, do you suppose is "populist" about being "anti-theory"? Second, why do you suppose "anti-theoretical" attitudes might be popular among those doing cultural studies? And third, why is Hall so concerned to disavow such attitudes?
5. As my last set of questions suggests, Hall thinks that theory is important and valuable. Why? Why does he think that cultural studies mustn't renounce or forget about theory? Do you think he's right to insist that we must always make a "detour" through theory (283), or would you be just as glad to forget theory right about now? (I won't ask you to be honest about this in class-- although I won't mind if you are--but I hope you will think about this one on your own a bit.)