‘What I Came to Say’: Raymond Williams, the Sociology of Culture and the Politics of (Performance) Scholarship

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
JANELLE REINELT
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Cultural Materialism ◽  
Historical Romance ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Shared Experiences ◽  
Sociopolitical Context ◽  
Residual Values ◽  
Raymond Williams

This essay seeks to reconsider and appropriate the cultural politics of Raymond Williams for the project of formulating a critique of current ideas about politics and theatre. The residual values of cultural materialism as theorized by Williams, based on a concept of culture as productive, processual and egalitarian, have become less influential under the pressures of post-structuralism and neo-liberalism. The current attraction to Rancière, for example, emphasizes dissensus over consensus and singularity over collectivity. Post-dramatic theatre rejects direct engagement with political discourse altogether. While recognizing that these emerging theoretical ideas continue the historical romance of avant-garde theatre with rupture and dissent, Williams can remind us of still-powerful strategies that are rooted in identifying shared experiences, relating cultural production to its sociopolitical context, and the value of collective struggles.

Retroactivating the Idea of the Avant Garde

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Marc James Léger
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Contemporary Situation ◽  
Field Of Cultural Production ◽  
The University ◽  
Four Discourses

Abstract In the late 1970s, Pierre Bourdieu argued that the field of cultural production was distinguished along class lines by three different modes of cultural habitus: bourgeois disinterestness, petty-bourgeois allodoxia and working-class necessity. Since that era, the petty-bourgeois habitus has become the dominant predisposition. Adding Bourdieu’s sociology of culture to Peter Bürger’s historicized theory of the emergence of the avant garde as a critique of the “institution art,” a new “avant garde hypothesis” becomes possible for today’s age of post-Fordist biocapitalism. Based on Jacques Lacan’s Four Discourses, the contemporary situation is shown to privilege specific forms of cultural production, in particular an activist Discourse of the Hysteric and a technocratic Discourse of the University. Psychoanalysis reveals the limits of these tendencies while also underscoring the archaic aspects of an aestheticist Discourse of the Master and the transferential logics of Analyst avant gardes.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Political Economy of Communication

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Garnham ◽  
Christian Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Current Status ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Cultural Materialism ◽  
Audio Recording ◽  
Research Seminar ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
The University

This tripleC contribution is based on a  research seminar that took place at the University of Westminster on January 22, 2014. It featured a conversation with Nicholas Garnham that was chaired by Christian Fuchs. We publish here both the audio-recording as well as a printed version, for which the audio version acted as foundation, but that was entirely re-written.The task of the paper and the seminar was to revisit some of Nicholas Garnham’s ideas, writings and contributions to the study of the Political Economy of Communication and to reflect on the concepts, history, current status and perspectives of this field and the broader study of political economy today. The topics covered include Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism, Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture, the debate between Political Economy and Cultural Studies, information society theory, Karl Marx’s theory and the critique of capitalism.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Political Economy of Communication

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-141
Author(s):  
Nicholas Garnham ◽  
Christian Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Current Status ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Cultural Materialism ◽  
Audio Recording ◽  
Research Seminar ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
The University

This tripleC contribution is based on a  research seminar that took place at the University of Westminster on January 22, 2014. It featured a conversation with Nicholas Garnham that was chaired by Christian Fuchs. We publish here both the audio-recording as well as a printed version, for which the audio version acted as foundation, but that was entirely re-written.The task of the paper and the seminar was to revisit some of Nicholas Garnham’s ideas, writings and contributions to the study of the Political Economy of Communication and to reflect on the concepts, history, current status and perspectives of this field and the broader study of political economy today. The topics covered include Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism, Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture, the debate between Political Economy and Cultural Studies, information society theory, Karl Marx’s theory and the critique of capitalism.

Raymond Williams and Communication Studies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim McGuigan
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Cultural Materialism ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Raymond Williams

Raymond Williams (1921–1988) is often cited as one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of education and research known as cultural studies (CS). To be more specific, he formulated an influential methodology that he named “cultural materialism,” which has an affinity with CS but is a distinctive perspective in its own right. Williams’s most celebrated book, Culture and Society 1780–1950 (1958), traced British Romanticism’s critical response to the Industrial Revolution and successive debates on social and cultural change. At the time of publication, Williams declared “culture” to be “ordinary,” thereby challenging the cultural elitism of literary study and opening up questions concerning mass-popular culture. However, Williams distanced himself from the populist study of communications and culture that became fashionable in the 1980s. His transition from literary criticism and history to sociological commentary and speculation on future prospects was signaled further by his 1961 sequel to Culture and Society, The Long Revolution. Williams challenged the behaviorism of American-originated communication studies and drew upon European critical theories in his own work. His academic specialism was dramatic form, which he studied historically and related to theatrical and audiovisual trends in modern drama. His perspective of cultural materialism broke entirely with idealist approaches to the arts and communications media. However, he was firmly opposed to technologically determinist explanations of the emergence of new media and the dynamics of social change, On technical innovation, he emphasized the role of intentionality, the materiality of discourse, and the social conditions of cultural production and circulation. His key concepts include selective tradition, structure of feeling, and mobile privatization. Williams later coined the term “Plan X” to refer to the rise of military recklessness and unregulated “free-market” political economy and communications during the late 20th century. His final non-fiction book (he also wrote novels), Towards 2000 (1985), has been updated to take account of developments in culture, society, and the environment over the past 30 years.

Inventing Bergson: Cultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-Garde

1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 693
Author(s):  
William R. Keylor ◽  
Mark Antliff
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Avant Garde

scholarly journals The Role of social Identity in James Joyce`s Dubliners within the Light of Cultural Materialism

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-99
Author(s):  
Mojgan Gaeini ◽  
Fatemeh Sadat Basirizadeh ◽  
Mahnaz Soqandi MA
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
James Joyce ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Dominant Factor ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Cultural Materialism ◽  
Material Life ◽  
Raymond Williams

Language, Social identity and Religion are three major concerns of cultural studies. Language in literary texts plays a major role in constructing meaning and reflecting the author`s intention. Likewise religion as a cultural politics is a dominant factor in shaping mind as well in affecting the framework of literary text. Religion is one of the emerging issues in the modern era and forms the backbone of most literary works. Religion as a theme is seen to influence the operation of those who believe in it. It forms the functional framework that predetermines ones actions and behavior. Furthermore, social identity decides on the status of the social class and their material life situation.  Social identity relates to how we identify ourselves in relation to others according to what we have in common. All these issues are interrelated since they all cooperate and construct a social and cultural materiality. James Joyce could be placed among the most dominant cultural authors whose concern is the material life, social class, social identity and cultural crisis. As an outstanding author, Joyce is well known for his typical depiction, musical decoration as well as his sticking to proper cultural and social materials and issues such as religious matters. His major short story collection, Dubliners, revolves around the lifestyle of the Irish middle-class in Dublin around the late 1800s and early 1900s. This collection is decorated with violated norms and ritualistic behavior that are part of social constructs. Addressing social, religious and cultural issues, cultural materialists believe that “literature can serve as an agent of change”, since a culture`s hegemony is unstable. Raymond Williams views culture as a “productive process” that is, part of the means of production, and cultural materialism often identifies what he called “residual”, “emergent” and “oppositional” cultural elements. Seemingly, James Joyce`s Dubliners pertains to the notion of language, social identity and religion as cultural practices within the framework of cultural materialism. This study aims to clarify how James Joyce`s Dubliners reflects the notions of language, social identity and religion as cultural practices and how they construct social and cultural products within the framework of cultural materialism to show how James Joyce criticizes Irish culture at the beginning of the Twentieth century.

scholarly journals The practice of parodying: YouTube as a hybrid field of cultural production

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lillian Boxman-Shabtai
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Participatory Culture ◽  
Music Video ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
Field Of Cultural Production ◽  
The Relationship

Parody is so pervasive in participatory culture that it is described as a central component of Internet vernacular. Valuable insight has accumulated about parodies as artifacts, however, little is known about their creators. Drawing on the sociology of culture, this article explores YouTube music video parodies as a field of cultural production. Through interviews with 22 YouTubers recruited from a sample of top-ranked parodies, it examines the relationship between practitioner characteristics and their evaluation of parody. Contrary to other studies of participatory culture, the field was predominantly male in its participation and norms. It presented a divide between ‘strategic’ and ‘passionate’ practitioners who used parody to different ends. Nevertheless, interviewees valued similar attributes of parody, often diverging from scholarly definitions of the genre as critical commentary. This dynamic and the genre’s popularity are explained by the hybrid qualities of the field, which encourage diverse uses of parody.

Twenty-First-Century Realism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulka Anjaria
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Indigenous Literature ◽  
Oral Storytelling ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Literary Histories

Realism has a bad reputation in contemporary times. Generally thought to be an outdated mode that had its heyday in Victorian fiction, the French bourgeois novel, and pre-revolutionary Russian literature, literary histories tend to locate realism’s timely end in the ferment of interwar modernism and the rise of the avant-garde. Outside of the West, realism might be said to have met an even worse fate, as it was a mode explicitly presented to colonized societies as a vehicle of modernity, in opposition to what were deemed the poetic excesses, irrational temporalities, and/or oral-storytelling influences of indigenous literature. Yet despite this sense of realism’s outdatedness and political conservatism, the first decade-and-a-half of the 21st century has witnessed, across a wide range of literature and cultural production, what might be seen as a return to realism, not simply as a resistance to today’s new culture of heterogeneity and digitization but as a new way of imagining literary and political futures in a world increasingly lacking the clear-cut lines along which politics, history, and capitalism can be imagined. The arc of 21st-century realism can be seen through contemporary debates around the term, suggesting that considering 21st-century realism not as a residual mode or grouping of texts but as a particular perspective on literary futures—as the coming together, for instance, of unresolved and newer conflicts over relations of power and the politics of knowledge—offers a different story of global form making.

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