Culture or Ideology?

"The point is not 'for those who read "the culture studies people"'--the point is that the production of cultural studies has generated a crisis/shift of paradigm across virtually the entirety of the humanities, and within several social sciences--most notably anthropology, where graduate students these days pay far more attention to Stuart Hall or Foucault than to Mauss or Durkheim, and, to a much lesser extent, sociology.  Futhermore, cultural studies sets the tone of most of the post-68 'studies' that have emerged--queer studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies.  It is hardly some form of special pleading to note their importance." (Sherman)

The point is that culture/cultural studies are overinflations.  The shift of paradigm that you mention is largely in the US and perhaps also in Britain.  Graduate anthropology students paid attention to the works of Hall and Foucault I think because of anthropology's need to come to terms with the postmodernist wave (in the US) deriving from particular (mostly wrong) interpretations of Foucault, Derrida, and Lyotard. It is not so much any more.  I suggest you do some reading of anthropology journals and you may see that there is a re-evaluation among anthropologists of the committment to these texts, along with a re-affirmation of anthropology as the science of culture. (Ganesh)

"Anthropology used to emphasize the study of coherent 'cultures' (this was closely related to the colonial roots of the discipline, and the desire for knowledge that could be employed to control subaltern subjects)." (Sherman)

Anthropology still studies the coherence and disintegration of cultures, and it has moved away from its colonial roots (I did acknowledge anthropology's colonial roots - see my posting).  Sociology for that matter was no freer from colonial roots.  It is not just historical anthropology that one ought to point a finger at.


"Again, I'm not sure why you want to dismiss the contributions of Thompson, or Williams, Benjamin, Foucault, etc." (Sherman)

I do not dismiss at all the works of Benjamin or Foucault.  For Benjamin see my quote in the previous postings.  That is your  representation of my posting.


"Yes, well, the current blooming of the concept of cultural studies has a lot to do with the concept of 'culture is everywhere', affirmed by Thompson, Gramsci, Althusser, Foucault, Williams et al.  What it meant to them was that 'culture' was not some group of ideas, texts, images sprinkled atop a 'material' 'structure' but being constantly produced everywhere.  I think the knowledge produced by following this direction has been highly fruitful, and this, rather than whether or not you or I like the phrase 'culture is everywhere' is what matters." (Sherman)

It is not "culture that is everywhere" that is affirmed in the work of Foucault and Althusser.  Althusser speaks little if any of culture - his focus is more on ideology.  I suggest you read his 1969 essay on ISAs.  There is a difference that he draws, it is a fine one, between culture and ideology.  Foucault's work is an innovative response to Althusser's (esp. his Discipline and Punish) and Foucault like Althusser or Gramsci is a political thinker.  There is a need, in my opinion to distinguish between culture and the political. To your statement that 'culture is inescapable', I would respond that culture may be inescapable -whatever that means! - but so is ideology (Althusser), and the political is not something that I would simply reduce to the 'cultural'. (Ganesh)

"The way 'culture is everywhere' is used in cultural studies is the exact opposite of the way 'Western culture' is used that you are critiquing". (Sherman)

I think I am responding more to your statement - 'culture is inescapable' - which appears closer than you may care to see, in 'culture is everywhere' - rather than to cultural studies' use of the term.

Stay well.  Ganesh Trichur.