English 689: A History of Cultural Studies

Spring Semester 1999
Professor David Schmid
Tuesday 12.30-3.10 pm
Office: Clemens 401
Office Hours: T11-12, Th12-1 Clemens 436 and by appointment
Phone: 645-2575 Ext: 1029
schmid@acsu.buffalo.edu

Course Description

Within the space of a few short years, cultural studies has come seemingly from nowhere to take its place as the academy's ultimate buzz-word. Cultural studies is now firmly institutionalized not only in Britain and the United States, but also in many other parts of the world, including Australia and Asia, where indigenous versions of cultural studies exist. But where did cultural studies come from? What are its origins? What are its governing methods and assumptions? How did cultural studies arrive in the United States? How did it become such a powerful player in the academy? The aim of this course is to answer such questions by offering a history (note, not the history) of cultural studies by going back to Britain in the 1960s and showing how the work of cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams, along with the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, laid the theoretical foundations for the discipline of cultural studies. After establishing this base, the course will focus on how cultural studies was "Americanized," and then discuss what is currently the most authoritative expression of that "Americanization," the collection of essays entitled Cultural Studies. The course will then examine in greater depth the relation of both feminism and race to the discipline of cultural studies. For this part of the course we will read both theoretical essays and analyze the work of Madonna and Marlon Riggs. The emphasis will be on the practical application of the theoretical concepts. The course will conclude by discussing the future(s) of cultural studies, paying particular attention to the concepts of diaspora, transnationalism, and globalization.

Course Text
The book is for sale at Talking Leaves Bookstore, 3158 Main Street, 837-8554.

Lawrence Grossberg et al (eds), Cultural Studies

Course Reader
All other materials are available online at the UB Libraries website (see instruction sheet at the end of this syllabus).

Course Requirements
  1. Completion of reading assignments and preparation for discussion.
  2. One oral presentation (10 minutes). Initiate discussion by highlighting key questions and issues.
  3. Short paper (5 pages). Select a specific text, group of texts, or debate from the readings and pursue it in more depth that you would for a reading response. The emphasis of this assignment is on synthesis and interpretation more than research. Due: Friday, March 5.
  4. Seminar paper (15-20 pages). This paper can be an elaboration of the short paper, or an entirely new project. Feel free to include outside sources, but the focus should be on the material we have discussed in class. Possibilities include: a symptomatic reading of Cultural Studies that examines what the anthology tells us about the character of American cultural studies; another case study, along the same lines as our discussion of Madonna and Marlon Riggs. Feel free to follow whatever possibility interests you most. Due: Friday, May 14.


Class Format
  1. Introduction to the day's readings/issues (15-20 minutes).
  2. Student presentations (20 minutes).
  3. Discussion of student presentations/readings (45 minutes).
  4. Break (10 minutes).
  5. Discussion of readings (60 minutes).


Schedule of Readings

Week 1: January 19
Introductory Remarks
(Pre)Texts for cultural studies.


Week 2: January 26
Defining Culture
Raymond Williams, "Culture."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Raymond Williams, "Culture is ordinary."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Jere Paul Surber, Introduction to Culture and Critique.


Week 3: February 2
Defining Cultural Studies
Stuart Hall, "Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Richard Johnson, "What is cultural studies anyway?"
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Stuart Hall, "Cultural Studies and its theoretical legacies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Lawrence Grossberg, "The Formation(s) of Cultural Studies: An American in Birmingham."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Simon During, "Introduction."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Jere Paul Surber, Chapter 8 of Culture and Critique.
******
Meaghan Morris, "A question of cultural studies."
Cary Nelson, Paula A. Treichler, and Lawrence Grossberg, "Cultural Studies: An Introduction."
Antony Easthope, "The Subject of Literary Studies and the Subject of Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Graeme Turner, "Introduction."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries


Week 4: February 9
The Emergence of Cultural Studies
Stuart Hall, "The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis of the Humanities."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
John Clarke, "Cultural studies: a British inheritance."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Patrick Brantlinger, Chapters 1 and 2 of Crusoe's Footprints.
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Dennis Dworkin, Chapters 3 and 4 of Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain.
Michael Denning, "The Academic Left and the Rise of Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Michael Denning, "Culture and the Crisis: The Political and Intellectual Origins of Cultural Studies in the United States."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
*****
Lawrence Grossberg, "Toward A Genealogy of the State of Cultural Studies: The Discipline of Communication and the Reception of Cultural Studies in the United States."

Week 5: February 16
The Americanization of Cultural Studies
Joel Pfister, "The Americanization of Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Lawrence Grossberg, "Where Is the "America" in American Cultural Studies?"
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Cary Nelson, "Always Already Cultural Studies: Academic Conferences and a Manifesto."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Alan O'Connor, "The Problem of American Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Herman Gray, "Is Cultural Studies Inflated?: The Cultural Economy of Cultural Studies in the United States."

Week 6: February 23
Critiques of (American) Cultural Studies
Meaghan Morris, "Banality in Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Francis Mulhern, "The Politics of Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Graham Murdock, "Cultural Studies: Missing Links."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Mike Budd, Robert M. Entman and Clay Steinman, "The Affirmative Character of U.S. Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Todd Gitlin, "The Anti-Political Populism of Cultural Studies."
Marjorie Ferguson and Peter Golding, "Cultural Studies and Changing Times: An Introduction."

Week 7: March 2
Cultural Studies Part One
Read pages 1-212. This includes the following essays: Nelson, Treichler, and Grossberg; Bennett; Berland; Bhabha; Brunt; Chabram-Dernersesian; Clifford; Crimp; Curti; Fiske; Frith; Gilroy, Giroux.
*****
Michael Berube, "Pop Goes the Academy: Cult Studs Fights the Power."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Steven Jay Sherwood, Philip Smith, and Jeffrey C. Alexander, "The British Are Coming...Again!: The Hidden Agenda of "Cultural Studies"."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries

Week 8: March 9
SPRING BREAK -- NO CLASS

Week 9: March 16
Cultural Studies Part Two
Read pages 213-449. This includes the following essays: Glover and Kaplan; Grover; Hall; Hall; Haraway; hooks; Hunter; Kipnis; Mani; Martin; Mercer.

Week 10: March 23
Cultural Studies Part Three
Read pages 450-730. This includes the following essays: Morris; Penley; Probyn; Radway; Ross; Sanchez-Tranquilino and Tagg; Slack and Whitt; Stallybrass; Steedman; Szemere; Turner; Wallace; Warner; West; Wolff; McRobbie.

Week 11: March 30
Feminism and Cultural Studies
Brunsdon, Charlotte. "A thief in the night: stories of feminism in the 1970s at CCCS."
Sarah Franklin, Celia Lury, and Jackie Stacey. "Feminism and Cultural Studies: Pasts, Presents, Futures."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Elizabeth Long, "Feminism and Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Angela McRobbie, "The Es and the Anti-Es: New Questions for Feminism and Cultural Studies."
Ellen Rooney, "Discipline and Vanish: Feminism, the Resistance to Theory, and the Politics of Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
*****
Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber, "Girls and Subcultures."
Chapter 1 of Women's Studies Group, Women Take Issue.

Week 12: April 6
Case Study #1: Madonna
We will discuss various examples of Madonna's work, including the following songs/videos: "Like A Virgin"; "Material Girl"; "Papa Don't Preach"; "Like A Prayer"; "Express Yourself"; "Vogue"; "Human Nature"; "Bedtime Story". We may also force ourselves to watch Truth or Dare!
You should also check out the following websites:


Week 13: April 13
Race and Cultural Studies
Stuart Hall, "What is this "Black" in Black Popular Culture?"
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Paul Gilroy. "British Cultural Studies and the Pitfalls of Identity."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Kobena Mercer, "Introduction: Black Britain And The Cultural Politics of Diaspora."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Stuart Hall, "New ethnicities."
Isaac Julien, '"Black Is, Black Ain't": Notes on De-Essentializing Black Identities.'
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Isaac Julien and Kobena Mercer, "De Margin and De Center."
*****
Paul Gilroy, "Cultural Studies and Ethnic Absolutism."
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back.

Week 14: April 20
Case Study #2: Black Is, Black Ain't
We will watch and discuss Marlon Riggs's final film, Black Is, Black Ain't (1995).
You should also check out the following websites:


Week 15: April 27
The Future(s) of Cultural Studies
Lawrence Grossberg. "Cultural studies, modern logics, and theories of globalisation."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Benjamin Lee, "Between Nations And Disciplines."
Graham Murdock, "Cultural studies at the crossroads."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Jon Stratton and Ien Ang, "On the impossibility of a global cultural studies: 'British' cultural studies in an 'international' frame."
Raymond Williams, "The Future of Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
Duncan Webster, "Pessimism, Optimism, Pleasure: The Future of Cultural Studies."
Click here to download the PDF file from the libraries
*****
Lauren Berlant, "Collegiality, Crisis, and Cultural Studies."
Will Straw, "Shifting Boundaries, Lines of Descent: Cultural studies and institutional realignments."


Bibliography

Berlant, Lauren. "Collegiality, Crisis, and Cultural Studies." Profession 1998. pp. 105-116.

Berube, Michael. "Pop Goes the Academy: Cult Studs Fights the Power." Public Access: Literary Theory and American Cultural Politics. London and New York: Verso, 1994, pp. 137-60.

Brantlinger, Patrick. Crusoe's Footprints: Cultural Studies in Britain and America. New York and London: Routledge, 1990.

Brunsdon, Charlotte. "A thief in the night: stories of feminism in the 1970s at CCCS." Morley and Chen, pp. 276-287.

Budd, Mike, Robert M. Entman, and Clay Steinman. "The Affirmative Character of U.S. Cultural Studies." Critical Studies in Mass Communication. 7 (1990): 169-184.

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. The Empire Strikes Back: Race and racism in 70s Britain. London: Hutchinson, 1982.

Clarke, John. "Cultural Studies: A British Inheritance." New Times, Old Enemies: Essays on Cultural Studies and America. London: HarperCollins, 1991, pp. 1-19.

Denning, Michael. "The Academic Left and the Rise of Cultural Studies." Radical History Review 51 (1992): 21-47.

---. "Culture and the Crisis: The Political and Intellectual Origins of Cultural Studies in the United States." Nelson and Gaonkar, pp. 265-286.

Dent, Gina (ed). Black Poplar Culture. Seattle: Bay Press, 1992.

During, Simon. "Introduction." The Cultural Studies Reader. Simon During (ed). New York: Routledge, 1993, pp. 1-25.

Dworkin, Dennis. Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain: History, the New Left, and the Origins of Cultural Studies. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1997.

Easthope, Antony. "The Subject of Literary Studies and the Subject of Cultural Studies." Literary Into Cultural Studies. London and NY: Routledge, 1991, pp. 162-177.

Editorial Group. "Women's Studies Group: trying to do feminist intellectual work." Women's Studies Group, pp. 7-17.

Ferguson, Marjorie, and Peter Golding. "Cultural Studies and Changing Times: An Introduction." Ferguson and Golding, xiii-xxvii.

---., and ---. - Cultural Studies in Question. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997.

Franklin, Sarah, Celia Lury, and Jackie Stacey. "Feminism and Cultural Studies: Pasts, Presents, Futures." Off-Centre: Feminism and Cultural Studies. Sarah Franklin, Celia Lury, and Jackie Stacey (eds). New York: HarperCollins, 1991, pp. 1-19.

Gilroy, Paul. "British Cultural Studies and the Pitfalls of Identity." Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader. Houston A. Baker, Jr., Manthia Diawara, and Ruth H. Lindeborg (eds). Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1996, pp. 223-240.

---. "Cultural studies and Ethnic Absolutism." Grossberg, Nelson, and Treichler, pp. 187-199.

Gitlin, Todd. "The Anti-Political Populism of Cultural Studies." Ferguson and Golding, pp. 25-38.

Gray, Herman. "Is Cultural Studies Inflated?: The Cultural Economy of Cultural Studies in the United States." Nelson and Gaonkar, pp. 203-216.

Grossberg, Lawrence, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler (eds). Cultural Studies. New York and London: Routledge, 1992.

Grossberg, Lawrence. "Cultural studies, modern logics, and theories of globalisation." McRobbie (1996) pp. 7-35.

---. "The Formation(s) of Cultural Studies: An American in Birmingham" Bringing It All Back Home: Essays in Cultural Studies. Durham and London: Duke, 1997, pp. 195-234.

---. "Toward A Genealogy of the State of Cultural Studies: The Discipline of Communication and the Reception of Cultural Studies in the United States." Nelson and Gaonkar, pp. 131-147.

---. "Where is the 'America' in American Cultural Studies?" Bringing It All Back Home: Essays in Cultural Studies. Durham and London: Duke, 1997, pp. 287-303.

Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms." Culture, Ideology and Social Process. Tony Bennett et al. (eds). London: Batsford, 1981, pp. 19-39.

---. "Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies." Morley and Chen, pp. 262-276.

---. "The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis of the Humanities." October 53 (Summer 1990): 11-23.

---. "New ethnicities." Morley and Chen, pp. 441-450.

---. "What is this "Black" in Black Popular Culture?" Dent, pp. 21-33.

Johnson, Richard. "What is Cultural Studies Anyway?" Social Text 16 (Winter 1986/87): 38-80.

Julien, Isaac. '"Black Is, Black Ain't": Notes on De-Essentializing Black Identities' Dent, pp. 255-263.

---., and Kobena Mercer. "De Margin and De Centre." Morley and Chen, pp. 450-464.

Lee, Benjamin. "Between Nations and Disciplines." Nelson and Gaonkar, pp. 217-233.

Long, Elizabeth. "Feminism and Cultural Studies." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6.4 (1989): 427-435.

McRobbie, Angela (ed). Back to reality?: Social experience and cultural studies. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 1996.

---. "The Es and the Anti-Es: New Questions for Feminism and Cultural Studies." Ferguson and Golding, pp. 170-186.

McRobbie, Angela, and Jenny Garber. "Girls and Subcultures," in Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in post-war Britain. Ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. London: Hutchinson, 1976. pp. 209-222.

Mercer, Kobena. "Introduction: Black Britain and the Cultural Politics of Diaspora." Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. New York and London: Routledge, 1994. pp. 1-31, 309-313.

Morley, David and Kuan-Hsing Chen (eds). Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies.. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.

Morris, Meaghan. "A question of cultural studies." McRobbie (1996), pp. 36-57.

---. "Banality in Cultural Studies." Discourse X.2 (1988): 3-29.

Mulhern, Francis. "The Politics of Cultural Studies." Monthly Review 47.3 (July-August 1995): 31-40.

Murdock, Graham. "Cultural studies at the crossroads." McRobbie (1996), pp. 58-73.

---. "Cultural Studies: Missing Links." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6.4 (1989): 436-440.

Nelson, Cary. "Always Already Cultural Studies: Academic Conferences and a Manifesto." Isaiah Smithson and Nancy Ruff (eds). English Studies/Culture Studies: Institutionalizing Dissent. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1994, pp. 191-207.

Nelson, Cary, and Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar (eds). Disciplinarity and Dissent in Cultural Studies. New York and London: Routledge, 1996.

Nelson, Cary, Paula A. Treichler, and Lawrence Grossberg. "Cultural Studies: An Introduction." Grossberg, Nelson, and Treichler, pp. 1-17.

O'Connor, Alan. "The Problem of American Cultural Studies." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6.4 (1989): 405-413.

Pfister, Joel. "The Americanization of Cultural Studies." The Yale Journal of Criticism 4.2 (1991): 199-229.

Rooney, Ellen. "Discipline and Vanish: Feminism, the Resistance to Theory, and the Politics of Cultural Studies." differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 2.3 (1990): 14-28.

Sherwood, Steven Jay, Philip Smith, and Jeffrey C. Alexander. "The British Are Coming...Again!: The Hidden Agenda of "Cultural Studies"." Contemporary Sociology 22.3 (May 1993): 370-375.

Stratton, John and Ien Ang. "On the impossibility of a global cultural studies: 'British' cultural studies in an 'international' frame." Morley and Chen, pp. 361-392.

Straw, Will. "Shifting Boundaries, Lines of Descent: Cultural studies and institutional realignments." Relocating Cultural Studies: Developments in theory and research. Valda Blundell, John Shepherd and Ian Taylor (eds). London and New York: Routledge, 1993, pp. 86-102.

Surber, Jere Paul. Culture and Critique: An Introduction to the Critical Discourses of Cultural Studies. New York: Westview Press, 1998.

Turner, Graeme. "Introduction." British Cultural Studies: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 1990/1996, pp. 1-11.

Webster, Duncan. "Pessimism, Optimism, Pleasure: The Future of Cultural Studies." News From Nowhere 8 (1990): 81-103.

Williams, Raymond. "Culture." Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford UP, 1983, pp. 87-93.

---. "Culture is ordinary." Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader. Ann Gray and Jim McGuigan (eds). London: Edward Arnold, 1993, pp. 5-15.

---. "The Future of Cultural Studies." The Politics of Modernism. London and New York: 1989, pp. 151-163.

Women's Studies Group. Women Take Issue: Aspects of Women's Subordination. London: Hutchinson, 1978.


Further Reading

Tony Bennett, Colin Mercer, and Janet Woollacott (eds). Popular Culture and Social Relations. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1986.

Brunt, Rosalind, and Caroline Rowan (eds). Feminism, Culture and Politics. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1982.

Clarke, John, Chas Critcher, and Richard Johnson (eds). Working Class Culture: Studies in history and theory. London: Hutchinson, 1979.

Frow, John, and Meaghan Morris (eds). Australian Cultural Studies: A Reader. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1993.

Gamman, Lorraine, and Margaret Marshment (eds). The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture. Seattle: The Real Comet Press, 1989.

Giroux, Henry A. Disturbing Pleasures: Learning Popular Culture. New York and London: 1994.

Hall, Stuart, and Tony Jefferson. Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in post-war Britain. London: Hutchinson, 1976.

Hebdige, Dick. Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things. New York: Comedia, 1988.

---. Subculture: The Meaning Of Style. London and New York: Methuen, 1979.

George Lipsitz. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1990.

McRobbie, Angela. Postmodernism and Popular Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.

Mellencamp, Patricia (ed). Logics of Television: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990.

Morris, Meaghan. The Pirate's Fiancee: Feminism, Reading, Postmodernism. New York: Verso, 1989.

Mukerji, Chandra, and Michael Schudson (eds). Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives In Cultural Studies. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991.

Nelson, Cary, and Lawrence Grossberg (eds). Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1988.

Ross, Andrew. No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 1989.

Saldivar, Jose David. Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies. Berkeley: U of California P, 1997.

Alan Sinfield. Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading. Berkeley: U of California, 1992.

---. Literature, Politics, and Culture in Postwar Britain. Berkeley: U of California P, 1989.

Raymond Williams. Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism. New York: Verso, 1989.