Namrataba Zala's assignment 2016-2018

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NAMRATABA ZALA

Semester: 1

Roll No.: 20

Enrollment No.: 2069108420170033

Batch: 2016-2018

S. B. Gardi Department Of English  

Bhavnagar University

Email id: namratazala2707@gmail.com

Paper no. : 8 The cultural studies

Cultural materialism

Introduction to cultural studies:

Cultural studies was initially developed by British academics in the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and has been subsequently taken up and transformed by scholars from many different disciplines around the world. Cultural studies is avowedly and even radically interdisciplinary and can sometimes be seen as antidisciplinary. A key concern for cultural studies practitioners is the examination of the forces within and through which socially organized people conduct and participate in the construction of their everyday lives.
Cultural studies combines a variety of politically engaged critical approaches drawn from and including semiotics, Marxism, feminist theory, ethnography, critical race theory, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, social theory, political theory, history, philosophy, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, communication studies, political economy, translation studies, museum studies and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in various societies and historical periods. Thus, cultural studies seeks to understand how meaning is generated, disseminated, contested, bound up with systems of power and control, and produced from the social, political and economic spheres within a particular social formation or conjuncture. Important theories of cultural hegemony and agency have both influenced and been developed by the cultural studies movement, as have many recent major communication theories and agendas, such as those that attempt to explain and analyze the cultural forces related to processes of globalization.

Materialism

For the desire to accumulate material goods, see Economic materialism. For the Marxist and other meanings, see Materialism (disambiguation).

Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are results of material interactions.
Materialism is closely related to physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the discoveries of the physical sciences to incorporate more sophisticated notions of physicality than mere ordinary matter, such as: spacetime, physical energies and forces, dark matter, and so on. Thus the term "physicalism" is preferred over "materialism" by some, while others use the terms as if they are synonymous.
Philosophies contradictory to materialism or physicalism include idealism, pluralism, dualism, and other forms of monism.
Dialectical materialism (sometimes abbreviated diamat) is a philosophy of science and nature, based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and developed largely in Russia and the Soviet Union.^[1][2] Inspired by dialectic and materialist philosophical traditions, it accepts evolution of the natural world and the emergence of new qualities of being at new stages of evolution. As Z. A. Jordan notes, "Engels made constant use of the metaphysical insight that the higher level of existence emerges from and has its roots in the lower; that the higher level constitutes a new order of being with its irreducible laws; and that this process of evolutionary advance is governed by laws of development which reflect basic properties of 'matter in motion as a whole'."^[3]

American materialism

the American economy is fed by our materialistic desires. Even during the tough financial struggles of a recession, many Americans continue to purchase that which is bigger and better. America is the top consumer of global products and resources. This local and global buying obsession may be one of the pillars holding the economy out of a depression. Although the economy can benefit from materialism, it also weakens overall financial stability of the individuals that fall prey to it.

New Historicism is a form of literary theory whose goal is to understand intellectual history through literature, and literature through its cultural context, which follows the 1950s field of history of ideas and refers to itself as a form of "Cultural Poetics." It was first developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic and Harvard English Professor Stephen Greenblatt, and gained widespread influence in the 1990s.^[1] The term New Historicism was coined by Greenblatt when he "collected a bunch of essays and then, out of a kind of desperation to get the introduction done, I wrote that the essays represented something I called a ‘new historicism.’"

Cultural materialism in literary theory and cultural studies traces its origin to the work of the left-wing literary critic Raymond Williams. Cultural materialism makes analysis based in critical theory, in the tradition of the Frankfurt School.

It emerged as a theoretical movement in the early 1980s along with new historicism, an American approach to early modern literature, with which it shares much common ground. The term was coined by Williams, who used it to describe a theoretical blending of leftist culturalism and Marxist analysis. Cultural materialists deal with specific historical documents and attempt to analyze and recreate the zeitgeist of a particular moment in history.

Williams viewed culture as a "productive process", part of the means of production, and cultural materialism often identifies what he called "residual", "emergent" and "oppositional" cultural elements. Following in the tradition of Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci and others, cultural materialists extend the class-based analysis of traditional Marxism (Neo-Marxism) by means of an additional focus on the marginalized.

Cultural materialists analyze the processes by which hegemonic forces in society appropriate canonical and historically important texts, such as Shakespeare and Austen, and utilize them in an attempt to validate or inscribe certain values on the cultural imaginary. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, authors of Political Shakespeare, have had considerable influence in the development of this movement and their book is considered to be a seminal text. They have identified four defining characteristics of cultural materialism as a theoretical device:

• Historical context
• Close textual analysis
• Political commitment
• Theoretical method

Cultural materialists seek to draw attention to the processes being employed by contemporary power structures, such as the church, the state or the academy, to disseminate ideology. To do this they explore a text’s historical context and its political implications, and then through close textual analysis note the dominant hegemonic position. They identify possibilities for the rejection and/or subversion of that position. British critic Graham Holderness defines cultural materialism as a "politicized form of historiography".

Through its insistence on the importance of an engagement with issues of gender, sexuality, race and class, cultural materialism has had a significant impact on the field of literary studies, especially in Britain. Cultural materialists have found the area of Renaissance studies particularly receptive to this type of analysis. Traditional humanist readings often eschewed consideration of the oppressed and marginalized in textual readings, whereas cultural materialists routinely consider such groups in their engagement with literary texts, thus opening new avenues of approach to issues of representation in the field of literary criticism.

Cultural Materialism - Infrastructure, Structure and Superstructure
Cultural Materialism retains and expands upon the Marxist Three Levels of Culture Model: Infrastructure, Structure and Superstructure.

• Infrastructure -- population, basic biological need, and resources (labor, equipment, technology, etc.).
• Structure -- pattern of organization (government, education, production regulation, etc.).
• Superstructure -- social institutions (law, religion, politics, art, science, superstition, values, emotions, traditions, etc.).

Marxist Dialectical Materialism (concepts and ideas are the result of material condition) and Marxist Historical Materialism (influential members of society hold sway on material condition, while society's social institutions are founded upon material condition) differ from Cultural Materialism in a few key aspects. Cultural Materialism holds that Infrastructure has influence on Structure, while Structure exerts little influence upon Infrastructure. Marxist Materialism, on the other hand, maintains that Infrastructure and Structure are influential to each other. Another distinction between Marxist and Cultural Materialism is Class Theory. Marxist Materialism believes social change is beneficial to the ruling (Bourgeoisie) class only, while Cultural Materialists believe social change is beneficial to the working (Proletariat) class as well.

Cultural Materialism - Organization, Ideology and Symbolism
Cultural Materialism seeks to explain cultural organization, ideology and symbolism within a materialistic (Infrastructure/structure/superstructure) framework. Cultural Materialists believe society develops on a trial and error basis. If something is not beneficial to a society's ability to produce and/or reproduce, or causes production and/or reproduction to exceed acceptable limits, it will disappear from society altogether. Therefore, law, government, religion, family values, etc. must be beneficial to society or they will cease to exist within society. Cultural Materialists ignore "Emic" (society's opinion) in favor of "Etic" (observation of phenomenon via scientific method).

Cultural Materialism - Criticisms
Proponents of alternative anthropological doctrines criticize Cultural Materialism for various reasons. Marxists criticize Cultural Materialism for ignoring Structure's influence upon Infrastructure. Postmodernists believe that reliance upon "Etic" in studying culture is not appropriate, as science is merely a function of culture. Idealists criticize Cultural Materialism for ignoring variables such as genetics, and believe "Emic" is more significant than Cultural Materialists allow. Finally, it seems that Materialism is too simplistic. We must consider intellectual and spiritual influences upon society as well. We are intelligent creatures who tend to have spiritual inclinations that cannot be accounted for by material means alone.

Difference – New Historicism vs Cultural Materialism
 

New historicism and cultural materialism are two literary theories that have similar characteristics. The key difference between new historicism and cultural materialism is that New Historicism focuses on the oppression in the society that has  to be overcome in order to achieve change whereas cultural Materialism focuses on how that change is brought about.

Focus:

New Historicism focus on the oppressive aspects of society people has to overcome to achieve change.
Cultural Materialism focuses on how that change is formed.

Views:

New Historicists claim that they are aware of the difficulties, limitations, contradictions and problems of trying to establish the truth; nevertheless, they believe in the truth of their work.

Cultural Materialist sees new historicism as politically ineffective since it does not believe in absolute truth or knowledge. They feel that cultural materialists do not believe in the truth of what they write.

Political Situation:

New Historicists situate a text within the political situation of its contemporary society.
Cultural Materialists situate a text with the political situation of the critic’s contemporary world.




Web source:
https://www.google.co.in/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=YnXSWLiED4zT8gf6k5iICQ&gws_rd=ssl#q=cultural+materialism&*
http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory_pages/Materialism.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_materialism_(cultural_studies)