Title: American culture and society in chronological, ethnic, and regional perspective
1American culture and society in chronological,
ethnic, and regional perspective
- Lecture One
- Introduction, basic terms and concepts
2WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?
- A study of culture, or the study of contemporary
culture - Originates in Great Britain in the 1950s
- Richard Hoggart The Uses of Literacy (1957)
emphasis on uneqality, as far as money, health
care, education - Raymond Williams The Long Revolution(1961)
culture cannot be uncoupled from society
3WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?
- Hoggart established the Birmingham Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies - A move from locally produced cultural forms
(holidays, dances, attitudes to family) to the
larger picture, or culture produced from afar
by the state-- educational system, or by culture
industrymusic, film, and broadcasting - Early 1970s Emphasis on cultures political
function culture came to be considered a form of
hegemony
4HEGEMONY
- Term is associated with Antonio Gramsci, Italian
Marxist,(1920s, 1930s) - Relations of domination which are not visible as
such - Involves not coercion, but consent on the part of
the dominated, or the subaltern - Forms of hegemony or hegemonic forces alter their
content as social and cultural conditions change - Counter-hegemonic strategies have to be revised
5CULTURE AS A FORM OF HEGEMONY
- Culture is not an expression of local communal
ties, but an apparatus within a large system of
domination - Culture is broken down into discourses, or
signifying practices - Discourse relationship between power and
language - Culture can produce conforming, or docile
citizens or bodies - Coercive practices are developed aiming at the
manipulation of the human being, his gestures,
Docile bodies or engedelmes testek result from
disciplinary practices, separating people in
space (army, prisons, dormitories,
etc.)--Foucault -
6LEADING THINKERS
- Louis Althusser Ideological state apparatus
political party, religion, education, family - Ideology gives us identity, we are subjected to
ideology, no free agency or free will for human
consciousness, helps us make sense of the world,
through it we enter the symbolic order, see
ourselves mirrored in it, - Michel Foucault Discourses are produced
historically, examined asylums, prisons,
Episteme regulates the development and
transformation of knowledge a group of rules of
what we count as knowledge of the given period
7A semiotic approach to reading cultural products
- Signsignifier and signified
- Polysemy a signifier always has more than one
meaning - Meaning an effect of differences within the
larger system - Meanings are not produced referentially, by
pointing to specific objects, but by one signs
difference from another - Signs can be substituted for anotherparadigmatica
l relation Marlboro man--toughness - Signs can enter a sequence of other
signssyntagmatical relation Marlboro
man-smoking-cancer
8THEN WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?
- A discipline interested in hegemony, discourse,
the distribution of power - How groups with the least power develop their own
readings of cultural products in articulating
their identity - Culture at the interstices, the gaps of power
relations - The cultural construction of race, ethnicity, and
gender - Subject expressive, has agency, shapes his or
her lifeSelf - Object muted, suppressed, deprived of
agency--Other
9A RESEARCH TOOL SPACE, SPATIALITY
- Cultural studies helps us to examine texts from
the following aspects - Spatiality Phenomenological approach
- Martin Heidegger subject dwells in space
- Edward Casey body as an organizing force, a link
between self and the lived place - Spatiality Post-Marxist approach
- Foucault spatiality is a social product,
determined by power relations - Third Space fissure in the dominant
discourseHomi Bhabha
10THE THIRD SPACE
-
- Third space a hybrid movement of the subject,
not simply a negation of social space both
negating and building upon a socio-spatial
paradigm - Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter condemned as
an adulteress, yet by proudly wearing the letter
A she reinforces her own identity
11POST MODERN SPATIALITY THEORIES
- Non-place places of transition, cannot be
integrated into any spatial paradigm, expresses
rootlessness, expresses difference from the
environment (Marc Augé) - Minorities tend to be restricted into non-places
- Negative space (Nancy D. Munn) prohibited space,
boundary making resulting from racist tactics of
space production
12THE ABJECT
- Julia KristevaThe Powers of Horror
- Designates what has been discharged from the
body, expelled, rendered Other - Yet, by discharge and expulsion the identity of
the Other is established as well
13LECTURE TWO
- A cultural studies inspired look at American
culture
14WHAT DO ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH AMERICAN CULTURE
AND SOCIETY?
- Contesting national narratives (Native American,
White, Asian-American, African-American, etc.) - American exceptionalism a rooted belief in
chosenness, mission concept a core element of
national self-definition, promotion of a
homogeneous image - Counter discourses undermining the privileged
status of white, heterosexual, Anglo-Saxon
episteme - History as a discourse cannot comprehend the
whole past, thus there are many differing views
of the past--polysemy
15HEGEMONY IN AMERICAN CONTEXT
- The examination of how power works?
- A continuous debate about power, authority, and
its meaning - American culture is dialogical
- Dialogism, a term by Mikhail Bakhtin
- Language, and culture is dialogical interacting
Self and Other in a constant process of
intermingling of diverse points of view - A continous interplay of culture, history, and
power
16CULTURAL IDENTITY
- Stuart Hall Cultural identity is not a fixed
concept - It is constructed through memory, fantasy,
narrative, and myth - America an assemblage of multiplicity,
constantly producing new selves and transforming
old ones
17PREVIOUS FORMS OF AMERICAN IDENTITY
- Crevecoeur Grand Alma Mater
- Lord Bryce Amazing Solvent Power of American
democracy - Gunnar Myrdal American Creed
- Melting pot v. Salad bowl
- Parallel cultures
- Caleidoscope
18COLONIAL ECOLOGY
- Environment is not pristine, no unspoiled
wilderness - Indian hunting practices cause a major loss in
wild species - Slash and burn agriculture
- Transformation of the physical landscape
introduction of private property, cleared, grazed
lands are subject to erosion - Indian trading practices (trinkets for furs)
deplete large mammal population
19SOCIETY IN GENERAL
- 18th century 3 population growth
- Rise of large and multi-generational families
- Scarcity of women
- Average age of 20-21
- Greater longevity, lower death rate in Europe
- Average age 1790, 16
20VIEWS ON WOMEN
- Pre-supposed inferiority (weaker vessels)
- John Winthrop A true wife accounts her
subjection as her honor and freedom - Barred from preaching, holding office, entering
public schools, making contracts, owning
propertynegative space - Emphasis on family values leads to improvement,
yet superior aspect of life was masculine and
eternalthird space or hybridization
21OVERALL ANALYSIS
- Inequality gender and economics-based
- Form of hegemony WASPM
- Exclusion from discourse Native Americans,
women, children, slaves - Episteme WASPM, ideological state apparati are
controlled by patriarchy - Power at the interstices or gaps scarcity of
women, Puritan laws and emphasis on family values
protect them from physical abuse, allow for
divorce
22TEXTUAL ANALYSIS WINTHROPS ON CHRISTIAN CHARITY
- EPISTEME The Bible
-
- SPATIALITY
- We shall be a city upon a hill, that is we
construct the given space, the subjects form the
respective space, we pervade through space -
- DYNAMICS OF SUBJECT, OBJECT Settlers see
themselves in Subject position, no mention of
natives or Others. Except an allusion to being
seduced to worship other Gods. Yet if straying
from ruling discourse and episteme we perish, we
be consumed out of the good land, thus reference
is made to abject status
23LECTURE THREE
- Colonial society and culture
24SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
- The rise of nationalism after the end of Hundred
Years War in 1453 - European societies remained highly hierarchical
- A patriarchal system of family governance
25SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
- The English Reformation
- Rejection of Catholic rituals
- Rejection of established Church hierarchy
- Salvation can only be achieved by faith
26ENGLISH BACKGROUND TO PURITANISM
- A product of Reformation, Renaissance
- Economics, politics joined hands with theology
- Puritanism promoting individualism presents a
challenge to English institutional life
27EVOLUTION OF MODERN SOCIETY
- Two stage evolutionary process
- 1. Dissipation of corporate feudal order into
unregulated members of society - 2. Struggles of individuals to regroup themselves
into new social commonwealth - Puritan revolution of capable middle class
- Demanding greater freedom of trade
- English Revolution promotes the development of
the system of capitalism and that of
parliamentary government
28THEOLOGICAL DISPUTES
- Anglican Absolutist principle of church and
state, dominated by the feudal spirit of
corporate unity, stood for Bishop and King,
divine right - Presbyterian elected stewardship supersedes
divine right, a compromise between aristocracy
and democracy - Independent consciously democratic, one aspect
Separatists Come out from among them and be ye
separate (Paul)
29CALVINISM
- Total depravity effect of the Fall, sin extended
to human thinking, emotion, and will - Unconditional election God provides knowledge of
himself only to those whom he was pleased with - Limited atonement Christ died for specific
people with specific sins - Irresistible grace All elected by God will come
to a knowledge of him - Perseverance of the Saints The Saints whom God
glorified remain with him until death
30A PEOPLES HISTORY
- The Columbian landfall.
- First messenger of Western Civilization in the
Americas - Columbus was promised title of the Admiral of the
Ocean Sea, 10 of the profits, governorship of
new lands - Meets Arawaks, agricultural people living in
village communes - Columbus sends exaggerated reports back to Madrid
31COLUMBUS AND THE CONQUISTADORS
- Search for slaves and gold
- Exhaustion of resources, total control of Indians
- Unspeakable cruelty
- Reports by Bartholomeo las Casas History of the
Indies - Endless testimonies prove the mild and pacific
temperament of the natives. But our work was to
exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle, and destroy.
The Admiral so anxious to please the king
committed irreparable crimes against the Indians
32HERNANDO CORTÉS
- Aztec civilization based on the heritage of the
Mayan, Zapotec, and Toltec cultures - Public constructions built by stone tools and
organized human labor - Ritual killings, sacrifices
- Yet, innocent and naive upon arrival of
Spaniards bearded white men in armor, riding
horses were considered the personification of
Quetzalcoatl, a man-god who died three hundred
years earlier and promised to return
33CORTÉZS CONQUEST
- Obsessed with finding gold
- March of death from town to town,
- Cholula massacre
- Breaks the will of the Aztec people,death of
Montezuma - Same techniques followed by Francisco Pizarro in
Peru
34ENGLISH COLONIZATION OF THE NEW WORLD
- 1585 Richard Grenville lands in Virginia,
destroys local tribes on the pretext of a stolen
silver cup - 1610 Starving time, settlers join Indians, when
refused to return and believed to have been
kidnapped colonists attack Indian settlement - Powhatan war 1622-1632 a response to Jamestown
Massacre
35Indian wars in new england
- Indian land was legally in a vacuum. Indians had
not subdued the land, they had only a natural
right to it not a civil right--Winthrop - Justification from the Bible
- Psalm 28 Ask of me, and I shall give thee.the
heaven for thy inheritance and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession. - Romans 132Whosoever resisted the power,
resisted the ordinance of God and they that
resist shall receive to themselves damnation
36PEQUOT WAR
- 1636 murder of a white trader leads to conflict
- Punitive expedition
- Puritans use Cortés tactics, destroying civilian
population to terrorize people into submission - Mystic River Massacre