STUDENTS' RESPONSES TO MICHAEL BERUBE, JOHN FISKE, AND STUART HALL
I agree with Bill Warner's claim that there's a discrepancy between what John Fiske says he's doing and what he's actually doing, as well as with bell hooks's complaint that Fiske makes a binary opposition between the intellectual and the underclass. (Why no response to her complaint?) Fiske has not painted a picture of the "popular" habitus as subordinate or inferior to academia, but he also has not convincingly crossed the gap from one habitus to another . . . I would have like to read more about how academic discourses have been and are (whether they like it or not) influenced by the "culture of everyday life." (Steve Rodgers)
Fiske's emphasis on the temporal dimension of social space seems to go hand in hand with his emphasis on history and agency. Frederic Jameson has referred to the "new spatial logic" of postmodernism, giving us the impression that temporality has, for the most part, been superseded by spatiality. Fiske, however, in some sense like Foucault, is interested in tracing "trajectories" through time. Space is still very important here--the word "trajectory" itself implies movement through a space--but there seems to be as well a renewed interest in time. Is this, yet again, a reaction to the a-historicity of thinkers like Derrida? (Steve Rodgers)
Stuart Hall conjures up the ghosts of one of post-structuralism's most hated predecessors: Sartrean existentialism. His notion that cultural studies should regard theory as something immutable with which we continually struggle presents one notable departure from the existentialist idea of definition through struggle: in his talk, Hall states that the tension with the theoretical and political questions is permanent and does not require a final closure. Here I interpreted Hall as rejecting the kind of teleological theorizing that Andrew Ross accuses him of: Hall's view seemed to create a kind of anti-existential view of theory as something with which we must constantly struggle. (Chris Schatz)
The proponents of cultural studies wish to be viewed as both elite and subaltern; while they are trashing the intellectual politics of the elite, they are analyzing the situation of the subjugated peoples from a lofty intellectual standpoint. (Chris Schatz)
What next?