University Mohamed V in Rabat

Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences

Department of English and Literature
Introduction to Cultural Studies (S4)
Prof. Akkaoui

General Introduction

- As its name suggests, Cultural Studies is concerned with the study of culture and cultural
phenomena and discourses.

- While exploring the field of cultural studies, a number of related key concepts like culture,
text, representation, identity, ideology, discourse, and power will be studied. These are the
‗keys‘ that will enable you as a student to understand, dismantle, question, analyze and
deconstruct various cultural texts and phenomena.

- These and numerous other key concepts are defined and discussed briefly in The Sage
Dictionary of Cultural Studies, by Chris Barker. (This book is available on Google classroom
and students can use it as one of the main references for the course).

- Along with these key concepts, a number of texts (extracted from books and articles) will also
be studied; some are posted on Google classroom platform.

- Most of the texts that will be studied have to do with cultural discourses. While studying
these discourses, many notions like: colonialism, Orientalism, Islamophobia, feminism,
gender, gender stereotypes, diaspora, hybridity and Otherness are introduced and
illustrated.

On Culture & Cultural Studies

1- Defining Culture
- ‗Culture‘ is certainly the most central concept in the field of ‗Cultural Studies‘.

- Though ‗culture‘ is a very commonly used term, Mathew Arnold considers it as ―one of the
two or three most complicated words in the English language.‖ (See his book Keywords)

- Chris Barker also notes that ―culture is a complicated and contested word because the
concept does not represent an entity in an independent object world. Rather it is best
thought of as a mobile signifier that enables distinct and divergent ways of talking about
human activity for a variety of purposes.‖

- Culture is a comprehensive concept, in the sense that it includes nearly all aspects of
human life, all things that are made or acquired by humans. ‗culture‘ is often contrasted with
‗nature‘. (What is human made as opposed to what exists naturally, what is created by God)

- One of the oldest definitions of culture was given by the British anthropologist, Sir E.B.
Tylor (1832–1917) in the opening lines of his book, Primitive Cultures(1871):

- ‗‗Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society‘‘
 University Mohamed V in Rabat
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences
Department of English and Literature
Introduction to Cultural Studies (S4)
Prof. Akkaoui

- Culture thus includes such things as language, ideas, ethics, beliefs, values, religion,
education, customs, conventions, practices, clothes, food, law, arts (like music and
literature), artefacts, architecture, social organization/institutions of a given community,
country or nation.

- The UNESCO defines culture as: ―the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and
emotional features of society or a social group that encompasses not only art and literature,
but lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs.‖

- Culture has to do with peoples‘ shared meanings and lived experiences. Michael Ryan notes,
in this connection, that ―Culture as a way of life tends to produce a commonalty of thought
and behavior, as well as conformity with reigning standards, norms and rules. It is what
allows us to live together in communities by giving us shared signs and signals whose
meaning we know and recognize.‖

- In his book Culture and Society, Raymond Williams defines culture as ―a whole way of life.‖
This can be seen as one of the best and most inclusive definitions of the term.

- This definition is deemed to be democratic and progressive as it rejects the distinction in

terms of ‗high‘ versus ‗low‘ cultures. It rather considers culture as embracing the full range
of human activity (wherein the participation and contribution of the masses are as worthy
and as important as those of people from the higher classes).

2. What is the Subject of Cultural Studies?

- Not surprisingly, cultural studies does not have a clearly defined subject area. Its
starting point is a very broad and all-inclusive notion of culture that is used to describe
and study a whole range of practices.

- The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies defines it, ‗‗an interdisciplinary… field of inquiry
that explores the production and inculcation of culture or maps of meaning.‘‘

- The word ‗interdisciplinary‘ refers to the diverse other disciplines with which ‗Cultural
Studies‘ interacts or which it appropriates like: sociology, linguistics, anthropology, arts,
media, philosophy, political sciences, and psychology.

- ‗‗Cultural Studies constituted by a regulated way of speaking about objects…and coheres

around key concepts, ideas, and concerns that include articulation, culture, discourse,
ideology, identity, popular culture, power, representation and text.‘‘

- Cultural studies aims to examine its subject matter in terms of cultural practices and
their relation to power. Its constant goal is to expose power relationships and
examine how these relationships influence and shape cultural practices.

- Cultural studies is not simply the study of culture as though it was a discrete entity
divorced from its social or political context. Its objective is to understand culture in all
its complex forms and to analyse the social and political context within which it manifests
itself.
 University Mohamed V in Rabat
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences
Department of English and Literature
Introduction to Cultural Studies (S4)
Prof. Akkaoui

- Culture in cultural studies always performs two functions: it is both the object of study
and the location of political criticism and action. Cultural studies aims to be both an
intellectual and a pragmatic enterprise.

- Cultural studies attempts to expose and reconcile the division of knowledge, to overcome
the split between tacit (that is, intuitive knowledge based on local cultures) and objective
(so-called universal) forms of knowledge. It assumes a common identity and common
interest between the knower and the known, between the observer and what is being
observed.

Key Concepts: Language – Text

 Language:

- Language is probably the most important element in culture because it is the chief means of
forming and expressing meanings. It is language which mostly differentiates humans from
animals, and without it culture itself may have no sense or existence.

- It is also an important concept in cultural studies because most texts and discourses are
constituted and communicated through it.

- Language enables humans to form knowledge about themselves and the social world. It is
the main vehicle of socialization or enculturation.

- Language is not an innocent or transparent medium that reflects things or reality

objectively; it is rather ideological. As Chris Barker explains:

―For cultural studies, language is not a neutral medium for the

formation and transfer of values, meanings and forms of knowledge
that exist independently beyond its boundaries. Rather, language is
constitutive of those very values, meanings and knowledges.‖

 Text:

- Generally speaking, a text refers to the different types or forms of written material or
documents; eg. books and newspapers etc.

- In Cultural Studies, as Chris Barker notes, ―a text is anything that generates meaning
through signifying practices. That is, a text is a metaphor that invokes the constitution of
meaning through the organization of signs into representations.‖

- ―This includes the generation of meaning through images, sounds, objects (eg. clothes) and
activities (eg. dance or sport)‖… All these are ―cultural texts‖ and can be thus ―read as texts.‖
 University Mohamed V in Rabat
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences
Department of English and Literature
Introduction to Cultural Studies (S4)
Prof. Akkaoui

- Meaning is usually generated through the arrangement of signs and symbols in the texts.
These are discourses and representations that need to be analyzed and deconstructed so as
to see and uncover the cultural assumptions or ideologies they might contain.

- Texts are often open to interpretation and multiple readings. These readings can even be
contradictory, in some cases (eg, some readers of Heart of Darkness find J. Conrad as
colonial; others see him as anti-colonial).

- Intertextuality is the relationship that might exist between two or more texts. Barker notes
that it ―refers to the self-conscious citation of one text within another as an expression of
enlarged cultural self- consciousness.‖
(From: Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies)

Language:
Issues of language are central to culture and thus to cultural studies. Language is
important to an understanding of culture for two central and related reasons: first, language
is the privileged medium in which cultural meanings are formed and communicated; and
second, language is the primary means and medium through which we form knowledge
about ourselves and the social world. Language forms the network by which we classify the
world and make it meaningful, that is, cultural.
Following the influence of structuralism within cultural studies,
the investigation of culture has often been regarded as virtually interchangeable
with the exploration of meaning produced symbolically through signifying
systems that work ‗like a language‘. To hold that culture works ‗like a language‘ is
to argue that all meaningful representations are assembled and generate
meaning with essentially the same mechanisms as a language. That is, the
selection and organization of signs into texts which are constituted through a
form of grammar.
An essentialist or referential understanding of language argues that signs
have stable meanings that derive from their enduring referents in the real. In
that way, words refer to the essence of an object or category which they are said
to reflect. Thus the metaphor of the mirror is to the fore in this conception of
language. However, for the anti-essentialist (anti-representationalism) view of
language that informs cultural studies, language is a system of differential
signs that generate meaning through phonetic and conceptual difference.
That is to say, meaning is relational and unstable rather than referential and
fixed. Here meaning derives from the use of signs so that language is better
understood with the metaphor of the tool rather than that of the mirror.
For cultural studies, language is not a neutral medium for the formation
and transfer of values, meanings and forms of knowledge that exist
independently beyond its boundaries. Rather, language is constitutive of
those very values, meanings and knowledges. That is, language gives meaning
to material objects and social practices that are brought into view and made
intelligible to us in terms which language delimits.
Within those philosophies of language that have been deployed by cultural
studies there is a division between those who think there is something called
‗a language‘ that has a structure and those who do not. In the former camp
 University Mohamed V in Rabat
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences
Department of English and Literature
Introduction to Cultural Studies (S4)
Prof. Akkaoui

lies Saussure and structuralism (semiotics) which has been concerned with the
‗systems of relations’ of the underlying structure of sign systems and the
grammar that makes meaning possible. Meaning production is held to be the
effect of the ‗deep structures‘ of language that are manifested in specific
cultural phenomena or human speakers but which are not the outcome of the
intentions of actors per se.
However, thinkers in the latter camp see the concept of ‗language‘ as itself a tool
or metaphor for understanding the marks and noises that human beings
deploy to achieve their purposes but which does not itself have any underlying
structure or ‗existence‘. Thus, Derrida undermines the notion of the stable
structures of
language. Meaning, it is argued, cannot be confined to single words, sentences
or particular texts but is the outcome of relationships between texts, that is,
intertextuality. For Derrida, meaning can never be ‗fixed‘, rather words carry
multiple meanings including the echoes or traces of meanings from related
words in different contexts. This instability of meaning is only a ‗problem‘ if we
think that there is something called language whose job it is to originate a fixed
entity called ‗representational meaning‘. If we think of language as constituted by
the use of marks and noises that have temporarily stabilized uses related to the
achievement of purposes, then words ‗mean‘ what we use them to do in the
context of social practice. The endless play of signification that Derrida explores
is regulated and partially stabilized through pragmatic narratives and social
action so that the meaning of any given word is stabilized by social
knowledge of what it is used for, when, under what circumstances and
so forth.
Within cultural studies this stress on language as a practice derives from
both Bakhtin and Wittgenstein. For the latter, language is not best
understood as a metaphysical presence nor a coherent system but as a tool used
by human animals to coordinate their actions in the context of social
relationships. The meaning of a word lies in its use by living human beings in the
context of a specific form of life. Signification does not occur in a separate
domain from other practices and all practices signify. Meaning is the product
of the indistinguishability of signs and social practice. The metaphor of the ‗tool‘
captures the idea that we do things with language. That said, the concept of
‗using a tool‘ should not be read as implying the intentionality of a pre-existent
subject. Rather, ‗use‘ is acquired through our acculturation and habituation
into social practices and their associated justifications.
 University Mohamed V in Rabat
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences
Department of English and Literature
Introduction to Cultural Studies (S4)
Prof. Akkaoui

On Cultural Representation

- In the domain of humanities generally, and in that of cultural studies in particular,

Representation has to do with the use of signs, like words and images, to represent things
or people and depict reality in general.

- Representation, according to Stuart Hall, means ―the production of meaning through

language.‖ This implies that representation is the use of ―signs, organized into languages of
different kinds, to communicate meaningfully with others. Languages can use signs to
symbolize, stand for or reference objects, people and events in the so-called ‗real‘ world.‖

- Representation can be seen as re-presentation –which means presenting again– by

using those signs. This is often associated with the process of ‗construction‘ of cultural and
ideological meanings. Hence the notion that representations may be just
‗misrepresentations‘ and ideological constructs.

- Chris Barker notes that:

for cultural studies, representation does not simply reflect in symbolic form ‗things‘
that exist in an independent object world, rather, representations are constitutive of
the meaning of that which they purport to stand in for. That is, representation does
not involve correspondence between signs and objects but creates the
‗representational effect‘ of realism.

- Reality itself is a discursive construct; which means that when someone assumes to
represent reality through his stories, films or any kind of ‗text‘ or ‗narrative‘, what he
actually produces is a linguistic construct which can never be immune from the impact of
ideology and power.

- As mentioned earlier, representation depends for its existence and operation on

language; but as language itself cannot be neutral or free from ideological implications,
media and cultural representations are inherently biased and ideological. All representations
are ultimately no more than linguistic and ideological constructs.

- In this connection, Stewart Hall explains that:

There is no simple relationship of reflection, imitation or one-to-one correspondence

between language and the world. The world is not accurately or otherwise reflected
in the mirror of language. Language does not work like a mirror. Meaning is
produced within language, in and through various representational systems which,
for convenience, we call ‗languages‘. Meaning is produced by the practice, the work
of ‗representation. It is constructed through signifying —i.e. meaning-producing—
practices.
 University Mohamed V in Rabat
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences
Department of English and Literature
Introduction to Cultural Studies (S4)
Prof. Akkaoui

On Discourse, Ideology & Power

 Discourse/Ideology

- The term ‗discourse‘ refers generally to the use of language, in its diverse forms, to
produce or express meaning. But in Cultural Studies, ‗discourse‘ is often considered to be
very close to the concept of ‗ideology’.

- Ideology is a set of ideas or beliefs that are shared by members of a group of people
(e.g. a political party or religious group). This concept often has negative connotations. It
refers to the ideas or maneuvers which may be used to manipulate others so as to attain
some underhand purposes.

- John Thompson defines ideology as ―meaning in the service of power‖. This means that
ideas or meanings are often used to justify certain practices, attitudes and policies that serve
the interests of those who use it). Most Marxists believe in karl Marx‘s statement that the
dominant ideas in society are the ideas of the ruling class.

- It is in this context that we can understand Louis Althusser‘s consideration of ‗media‘ as one
of the ‗Ideological State Apparatuses‘; i.e. one of those institutions that is used by the state
to (re)produce ideology and thus maintain its status quo.

- Discourse, according to Michel Foucault, refers to regulated ways of speaking about a

subject through which objects and practices acquire meaning. (eg. discourse of madness,
discourse of terrorism).

- Discourse does not reflect meanings objectively; it rather constructs (i.e. makes up,
constitutes, or ‗fabricates‘) these meanings. It is in this sense that media and cultural
discourses are most often seen as ideological (and mere discursive constructs)

- As Chris Barker has explained:

Discourse is not a neutral medium for the formation and transfer of values,
meanings and knowledge that exist beyond its boundaries; rather, it is
constitutive of them…. Discourse constructs, defines and produces the objects of
knowledge in an intelligible way while excluding other forms of reasoning as
unintelligible.

- Hence Foucault‘s notion of the close relation between ‗power and knowledge‘. This
suggests that the one who produces discourse (or knowledge) occupies a privileged position
vis-à-vis the Other: the former is the subject, or the doer of the action, whereas the latter
is just the object of discourse and representation.

 Power/Knowledge

- In the field of cultural studies, power has to do with the capacity of a person or a group
of people to control or influence the conduct of others. The term ‗power‘ connotes ‗authority‘.
- One who has power is enabled to impose relations of domination and
subordination on those who do not possess it. Such relations occur at the
interpersonal level (e.g. man/woman relations in patriarchal societies) and at the
level of communities and nations (e.g. relations b/w the bourgeois and the
working classes, or between the colonizing and the colonized countries).

- Yet Foucault‘s concept of power differs from that of Marx and from Antonio
Gramsci‘s notion of ‗hegemony‘. For him, power is something that pervades all
levels of social relationships. It is productive of social relations and identities.

- Foucault notes that there is a permanent interplay between power and

knowledge. The production of knowledge is understood to be intertwined with
regimes of power. They are mutually constitutive: (i.e. they form and
constitute each other.)

- This means that knowledge can provide you with power (e.g. to
construct truth and dominate Others); and such power in return can
give you more opportunity to acquire knowledge or construct ‗truths‘
(e.g. about these Others themselves).

- For example, the Orientalist‘s knowledge gives him power —or

‗positional superiority‘ as Edward Said terms it— over his Oriental
subjects. This power in turn grants him the opportunity to study or
produce knowledge about these Orientals.

- The way cultural signs are ordered and regulated to reflect certain
meanings is usually indicative of the working of power. Here, the
concept of power is close to the notions of ideology and hegemony.

- In the light of Thompson‘s definition of ideology as ―meaning in the service of

power,‖ we can say that the production of meanings, discourses or
representations is closely intertwined with the question of power.

- As Barker has pointed out, ―The construction of representation is

necessarily a matter of power since any representation involves
the selection and organization of signs and meanings. For
example, whether one describes a particular armed person as
a ‗terrorist‘ or a ‗freedom fighter‘ is the practice of cultural
power.‖

- Barker also remarks that the concept of ‗discourse‘ is

indispensable for grasping the full meaning of Foucault‘s notion of
‗power/knowledge‘. It is through discourse that the objects of
knowledge are constructed in such a way as to privilege some forms of
reasoning as intelligible and to exclude others as insignificant or
meaningless.
 On Orientalism, Islamophobia & Occidentalism

 Orientalism

- Orientalism is a discourse produced by the West in the process of its continual attempt to
exercise its cultural and political hegemony over Oriental nations. It is, in other words, a
colonial discourse that seeks to establish and consolidate Western dominance on Oriental
nations.

- In his famous book Orientalism, Edward Said has noted that this term refers to:

‗‗a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction b/w
‗the Orient‘ and ‗the Occident‘. Thus a very large mass of writers, among whom are
poets, novelists, philosophers… & imperial administrators, have accepted the basic
distinction b/w East and West, as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics,
novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people,
customs, ‗minds‘, destiny, and so on.‖

- He also adds that ―Any one who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient—and this
applies whether the person is an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, or philologist—either
in its specific or its general aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he or she does is
Orientalism.‖

- In Orientalism, the Westerner is the producer of discourse (‗representer‘), whereas the

Oriental (or Easterner) is the object of representation (represented). The former has a
‗positional superiority‘ over the latter, his cultural Other. (Self versus Other).

- Orientalism can be thus understood as a discursive practice: The Orient as the product of
discourses that view it as the West‘s Other. It is a linguistic and cultural construct (that
has almost nothing to do with the real, geographical Orient).

- In other words, The Orient (of Orientalist texts) is constituted by an imagery and
vocabulary that have given it a specific kind of reality and presence within Western culture.

 Islamophobia:

- The term ‗Islamophobia‘ is composed of the words ‗Islam‘ and ‗phobia‘. This latter means
‗strong and unreasonable fear of something‘. Islamophobia then means abnormal fear and
probably hatred of Islam.

- Islamophobia can of course be seen as a type of Orientalist discourse because it views

Islam as a cultural ‗Other‘ that is opposed to the West and potentially dangerous to the Self
(i.e. West or Occident).

- Though the tensions between the West and the Islamic world in particular have existed at
least since the time of the Crusades, Islamophobia can be seen as a recent phenomenon
which Western media has enabled to propagate, especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks
in the USA and the rise of the discourse of ‗terrorism‘.

- CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) defined it as an ―anti-Islamic racism.‖ It went

on to explain that:

Islamophobia is a fear, hatred, or prejudice toward Islam and Muslims that results
in a pattern of discrimination and oppression. Islamophobia creates a distorted
understanding of Islam and Muslims by transforming the global and historical faith
tradition of Islam, along with the rich history of cultural and ethnic diversity of its
 adherents, into a set of stereotyped characteristics most often reducible to themes
of violence, civilizational subversion, and fundamental otherness. Islamophobia
must also be understood as a system of both religious and racial animosity that is
perpetuated by private citizens as well as cultural and political structures.

- According to CAIR, ―Islamophobic acts occur at both an individual and institutional level
and can take many forms. They may be physical attacks against those perceived to be
Muslim or the damage and desecration of mosques and Islamic centers.... Islamophobic
rhetoric expressed by individuals and political and media institutions can include verbal
harassment, intimidation and hate speech.‖

 Occidentalism

- Occidentalism is a kind of postcolonial cultural discourse that seeks to challenge,

counteract, interrogate or subvert the Orientalist ideology. It is a counter-hegemonic
discourse that aims to contest and resist Western stereotypes against the Orient and the
Orientals.

- In some forms of Occidentalism, the West is ‗othered‘ (i.e. depicted negatively and
stereotypically as Other); whereas the ‗self‘ (the Orient, in this case) may be shown
positively as better and superior.

- In Occidentalism, a reversal has been achieved: the Westerner has become the object of
study and representation, whereas the Oriental is the subject or representer.

- In his book An Introduction to the Science of Orientalism (in Arabic), the Egyptian Hassan
Hanafi states that Occidentalism seeks to study the West from a non-Western, Oriental
perspective.

- Speaking as an Oriental [not Orientalist] who views Occidentalism as the opposite or

antithesis of Orientalism, he says that:

If Orientalism is the sight of the self (Orient) from the perspective of the Other
(Occident), Occidentalism aims to disentangle the historical dialectical bond
between the Self and the Other, the dialectic between the Self‘s inferiority complex
and the Other‘s superiority complex.
 On Identity, Otherness & Multiculturalism

 Identity:

- Like ‗culture‘, the concept of ‗identity‘ is very complex and not easily defined. The two
concepts are somehow interrelated; hence the common notion of ‗cultural identity‘ (or
social/national identity).

- Identity has often to do with ‗who‘ or ‗what‘ a person or thing is. What makes him/her
or it different from others. (‗Identity‘ in this sense is the opposite of ‗difference‘ or
‗otherness‘)).

- One‘s identity is usually determined by a lot of social, cultural and biological elements
or factors such as sex (male or female), age, language, descent, career, religion, nationality
etc.

- Identity is also related to the notions of ‗self‘ and ‗subjectivity‘. It is not fixed or static;
it‘s rather flexible and ever-changing.

- In cultural studies, identity is often considered to be a social and cultural construct. As

Barker explains in The Sage Dictionary:

―Identity, it is argued, is not best understood as an entity but as an emotionally

charged description. Rather than being a timeless essence, what it is to be a person
is said to be a plastic and changeable, being specific to particular social and
cultural conjunctures.‖

- Elsewhere, Barker mentions that identities are now regarded as ―discursive

construction, the products of discourses or regulated ways of speaking about the world. In
other words, identities are constituted, made rather than found, by representations,
notably language.‖

 Otherness

- The concept of ‗Other‘ or ‗Otherness‘ is associated ―with those of identity and difference
in that identity is understood to be defined in part by its difference from the Other.‖

- ‗Other(ness)‘ exists in binary opposition to the notion of ‗Self‘. (What is Other is what is
not part of one‘s self or one‘s culture or cultural identity). Sometimes, the Other is needed
for self-identification (in other words, to recognize your-‗self‘, you may need the existence of
the ‗other‘ for the sake of comparison etc.

- Many binaries of difference can be subsumed under this chief dichotomy of Self and
Other: Us vs Them, Man vs Woman, West vs East, Colonizer vs Colonized, civilized vs
barbarous, light vs darkness, superior vs inferior etc.

- Derrida notes that ‗there is always a relation of power between the poles of a binary
opposition.‘ The first pole is presumed to be endowed with positive qualities, while the
second (its opposite) is conversely seen negatively and as subordinate to the former.

- While analyzing cultural/political discourses, one should then pay attention to the
power or ideology inherent in such binary divisions (eg. See how woman is seen as
subordinate or inferior to man (feminist discourses), or how the Orient is seen as inferior to
the Occident (in Orientalist discourses).

- Stuart Hall raises many questions that need to be considered when studying the
representation of Otherness:
 How do we represent people and places which are significantly different from us?
Why is ‗difference‘ so compelling a theme, so contested an area of representation?
What is the secret fascination of ‗Otherness‘, and why is popular representation so
frequently drawn to it?... where did popular figures and stereotypes come from?

 Multiculturalism

- Multiculturalism has to do with the presence of peoples from diverse cultures in a given
society/country and the ways this latter manages to ensure a peaceful and coherent
coexistence among them.

- Cultural diversity occurs when people of different races, nationalities, religions,

ethnicities, and philosophies come together to form a community. A truly diverse society is
one that recognizes and values the cultural differences in its people.

- Multiculturalism is a celebration of difference and cultural diversity. A society that

respects and promotes cultural diversity is often endowed with much vitality and vigour.

- There are two main theories of multiculturalism: the ―melting pot‖ theory and the ―salad
bowl‖ theory:

- The ‗melting pot‘ theory of multiculturalism assumes that various immigrant groups
will tend to ―melt together,‖ abandoning their individual cultures and eventually becoming
fully assimilated into the predominant society (e.g. the USA).

- The ‗salad bowl‘ theory describes a heterogeneous society in which people coexist but
retain some unique characteristics of their traditional culture. This theory asserts that it is
not necessary for people to give up their cultural heritage in order to be considered
members of the dominant society.

- Proponents of multiculturalism believe that people should retain at least some features
of their traditional cultures. Opponents say that multiculturalism threatens the social
order by diminishing the identity and influence of the predominant culture.

Key Concepts: Postcolonialism – Resistance

 Postcolonialism

- Postcolonialism is an academic discipline that is concerned with the study and examination
of the impacts of colonialism or imperialism on the native (formerly colonized) peoples and
lands.

- It explores the condition of postcoloniality: it studies the cultural legacy of colonialism and
analyzes the configurations of power and colonial ideology.

- The term ‗postcolonial‘, or ‗post-colonial‘ is somehow misleading (as it suggests that

colonialism is over). This question is debatable: it may be argued that even if most formerly
colonized countries are now free after getting their independence by the middle of the 20 thc,
many of them are still in a sense under the hegemony or dominance of neo-imperial
powers.
- The prefix ‗post‘ in the term ‗post-colonial‘ does not necessarily mean ‗after‘; and
accordingly, the term postcolonialism does not refer just to the post-independence period
but also to the colonial one.

- In Chris Barker‘s view:

―the concept ‗postcolonial‘ alludes to the world both during and after European
colonization and as such postcolonial theory explores the discursive condition of
postcoloniality. That is, the way colonial relations and their aftermath have been
constituted through representation. Postcolonial theory explores postcolonial
discourses and their subject positions in relation to the themes of race, nation,
subjectivity, power, subalterns, hybridity and creolization.‖

- Among the famous postcolonial critics and theorists we may mention: Edward Said, Homi
Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak and Frantz Fanon.

 Resistance
- To resist means to refuse to accept or comply with something. It also means to oppose or
try to repel the actions or force of somebody or something. Resistance exists wherever
relations of power exist. The attempt to counteract dominating power or
hegemonic discourses in literature or media is an act of resistance.

- Resistance, in the context of postcolonialism, has to do with the challenge, interrogation or

subversion of colonial ideological discourses and policies.

- It sometimes manifests itself in ‗writing back‘ to the West so as to contest or problematize

its colonial assumptions and ideological representations.

- Many postcolonial scholars and writers are actively engaged in ‗writing back‘ to the
metropolitan centre to question or dismantle its age-old ethnocentric stereotypes and
hegemonic constructions.

- This subversive, counter-hegemonic spirit has even become a notable feature of post-
colonial literature, as the following quotation confirms:

―A characteristic of dominated literatures is an inevitable tendency towards

subversion, and a study of the subversive strategies employed by post-colonial
writers would reveal both the configurations of domination and the imaginative and
creative responses to this condition. Directly and indirectly [...], the ‗Empire writes
back‘ to the imperial ‗centre‘, not only through nationalist assertion, proclaiming
itself central and self-determining, but even more radically by questioning the bases
of European and British metaphysics, challenging the world-view that can polarize
center and periphery in the first place.‖ (see The Empire Writes Back)

- E.g, ‗Occidentalist‘ texts or narratives can be seen as resisting and counter-hegemonic

discourses that attempt to subvert or contest Orientalist (mis)representations.
(Occidentalism in this sense is a counter-ideology that seeks to counteract the ideological
discourses of Orientalism)

- The postcolonial critics and authors try to give voice to the Other (colonized or subaltern),
who has long been systematically silenced in colonial texts and narratives.
 On Media and Ideology
Media Studies

- Media Studies is a domain of inquiry that is concerned with the study and exploration of
the means of communication and the institutions of providing and disseminating
information and ‗knowledge‘.

- Though ‗Media Studies‘ is an independent field or discipline, it can be subsumed under

the larger domain of ‗Cultural Studies‘. Media are themselves, in a sense, cultural
products; and they play a major role in producing and propagating cultural meanings and
norms.

- In Media Studies, media is in fact considered and explored as being an ‗industry‘. This
means that things like TV, films, videos, newspapers etc are all social and cultural
productions. By using a number of different critical approaches, Media Studies seeks to
answer such questions as:

‗What is produced by this industry? How is it produced? What do these products mean?
Who controls the means of production? What impact do media products have on society?
How are various groups of people represented by and in the media? Who buys and
consumes media products? How do the consumers interpret media products?‘

- Our globalized world nowadays is characterized by the widespread use of media, especially
the Internet; and this has a huge impact on our social and cultural lives. About this media
explosion, Z. Sardar and B. Van Loon note that:

Our modern world is saturated with media: TV channels – terrestrial, satellite and
digital—and countless radio stations are clogging up the airwaves. Newspapers,
books, comics, films, videos and animation are competing for our precious time.
Advertising is almost impossible to escape. Surfing the Web is now a daily chore for
most of us living in the industrialized world.

- Media are strongly associated with ideology because they are often manipulated in such a
way as to influence or even shape people‘s views and visions and to steer the ‗public
opinion‘ towards accepting policies and decisions that conform to the dictates of those who
control these media.

- Louis Althusser considers media as one of what he calls ‗Ideological State Apparatuses‘;
that is to say, one of the means or institutions by which a given state propagates its
ideology, serve its interests and preserve the status quo.

- Media discourses do not reflect reality objectively or neutrally; they rather construct and
make up this ‗reality‘. Hence the importance of studying and exploring the ways media
produce and spread ideology.

- The language used in Media is not necessarily verbal, it can also be visual and ‗textual‘ (an
image on a TV screen or a caricature on a newspaper can be seen as a text that
communicate much meaning)

- We need to interrogate media discourses and know the institutions that are behind their
production and the agendas they might be intended to carry out.

- Chris Barker notes that

Cultural Studies has paid particular attention to the ‗ideologies‘ constructed and
disseminated by the mass media and their role in the fabrication of cultural
hegemony. However it has also been argued that mass media texts are polysemic,
 that is, they contain many meanings that audiences can explore as active
producers of significance.

- This means that in spite of the huge ideological role which media always plays, audiences
can be active creators of meaning and they can resist media power and ideology. If media
discourses create certain ‗realities‘ which are essentially mere ideological constructs, we
need then to know how to deconstruct these discourses to uncover and reveal the ideology
inherent in them.

Homework:

1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb02e2SYdGg

- Watch and listen carefully to the video (click on the above link) about Michel Foucault‘s
notion of ‗Power and Knowledge‘. Write a brief summary of the main ideas you have
understood from the video.

2) Edward Said borrowed M. Foucault‘s concept of ‗discourse‘ and applied it to his famous
book Orientalism. In this latter, E. Said wrote:

―Without examining Orientalism as a discourse one cannot understand the

enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage—
and even produce—the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically,
scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-enlightenment period.‖ (p. 3)

- In what sense is Foucault‘s notion of ‗Power/Knowledge‘ relevant to E. Said‘s theory of

Orientalism? In relation with this question, what can you say about E. Said‘s use of the
following quotation from Karl Marx as epigraph to his book Orientalism: ―They cannot
represent themselves; they must be represented‖?

3) In Orientalism, E. Said also comments on how American media discourses present the
Arabs and Muslims in a negative and stereotypical way. He notes that in both American
cinema and television:

―the Arab is associated either with lechery or bloodthirsty dishonesty. He appears

as an oversexed degenerate … essentially sadistic, treacherous, low […]. In
newsreels or news-photos, the Arab is always shown in large numbers. No
individuality, no personal characteristics or experiences. Most of the pictures
represent mass rage and misery, or irrational (…) gestures. Lurking behind all of
these images is the menace of jihad. Consequence: a fear that the Muslims (or Arabs)
will take over the world.‖(pp.286-87)

- How are such stereotypes against Arabs and Muslims related to the questions of power and
knowledge in Foucault‘s theory?
 On Gender

The notion of gender can be understood to be referring to the

cultural assumptions and practices that govern the social construction of men,
women and their social relations. The concept gains much of its force through
a contrast with a conception of sex as the biological formation of the body.
Thus, femininity and masculinity as forms of gender are the outcome of the
cultural regulation of behaviours that are regarded as socially appropriate to
a given sex. Given that gender is held to be a matter of culture rather than
‗nature‘, so it is always a matter of how men and women are represented.
A good deal of feminist writing has sought to challenge what they take to be
essentialism and biological determinism through the conceptual division
between a biological sex and a culturally formed gender. Subsequently, it is
argued that no fundamental sex differences exist and that those that are
apparent are insignificant in relation to arguments for social equality. Rather,
it is the social, cultural and political discourses and practices of gender that
are held to lie at the root of women‘s subordination.
However, the sex–gender distinction upon which this argument is based
has itself become the subject of criticism. The differentiation between sex as
biology and gender as a cultural construction is broken down on the grounds
that there is in principle no access to biological ‗truths‘ that lie outside of
cultural discourses and therefore no ‗sex‘ which is not already cultural. In this
view, sexed bodies are always
already represented as the production of regulatory discourses. Judith Butler
has been at the cutting edge of this argument by suggesting that the category of
‗sex‘ is a normative and regulatory discourse that produces the bodies it
governs. Thus, discourses of sex are ones that, through repetition of the acts
they guide, bring sex into view as a necessary norm. Here, while sex is held to be
a social construction, it is an indispensable one that forms subjects and governs
the materialization of bodies.
Butler‘s work is emblematic of a wider body of thought produced by
feminists who have been influenced by poststructuralism and postmodernism.
These writers have argued that not only are sex and gender social and cultural
constructions, but also that there are multiple modes of femininity (and
masculinity). Here, rather than a conflict between two opposing male–female
groups, sexual identity concerns the balance of masculinity and femininity
within specific men and women. This argument stresses the singularity and
multiplicity of persons as well as the relativity of symbolic and biological
existence.

Links Body, culture, discourse, femininity, feminism, performativity, sex, women’s movement
 Key Concepts: Feminism – Gender

 Feminism

- Feminism is a social and political movement that explores the position of woman in society
and seeks to fight for her rights and promote her interests. It also refers to the body of
theoretical work that is basically concerned with questions of sex and gender.

- Feminists believe that women have traditionally been subordinated to/by men; hence their
struggle for the equality of the two sexes (equal rights and opportunities in all aspects of
public and private life).

- Chris Barker notes that ―feminism is centrally concerned with sex as an organizing
principle of social life that is thoroughly saturated with power relations.‖ Feminists
describe this ―structural phenomenon… as patriarchy with its derivative meanings of the
male-headed family, mastery and superiority.‖

- One can talk about different types of feminism with diverse strategies and methods of
analysis; e.g: liberal feminism, socialist feminism, poststructuralist feminism, black
feminism, Islamic feminism and postcolonial feminism.

- For example, ―liberal feminists regard differences between men and women as social
economic and cultural constructs rather than the outcome of an eternal biology.‖
Conversely, the socialist feminists maintain that the ―subordination of women to men is …
intrinsic to capitalism so that the full ‗liberation‘ of women would require the overthrow of
capitalist organization and social relations.‖

- Black feminists, on their part, argue that colonialism and racism have structured power
relationships b/w black and white women, defining women as white. Gender intersects
with race, ethnicity and nationality to produce different experiences of what it is to be a
woman. In a postcolonial context, women are doubly colonized: by imperial powers and the
native men.

 Gender

- Gender has to do with the question of sexual identity; i.e. being male or female (masculinity
vs femininity), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences
rather than biological ones.

- Identifying your gender can be more diverse than simply seeing yourself as ‗male‘ or
‗female‘. Some people identify with a gender that differs from their physical sex.

- While sex is a biological classification: male or female?; gender includes the social
attributes associated with being a man or a woman in a given society (masculinity vs
femininity)

- Chris Barker sees that the concept of ‗gender‘ refers to

―the cultural assumptions and practices that govern the social

construction of men, women and their social relations…. Thus,
femininity and masculinity as forms of gender are the outcome of the
cultural regulation of behaviours that are regarded as socially
appropriate to a given sex. Given that gender is held to be a matter of
culture rather than ‗nature‘, so it is always a matter of how men and
women are represented.‖
- Feminists challenge the essentialist idea of biological influence and consider the notions of
femininity and masculinity as mere social and cultural constructions.
- Some traits or attributes are stereotypically associated with man (eg. strong,
assertive, irresponsible, athletic), and others with woman (gentle, intuitive,
faithful, passive).

- These are social and cultural classifications — stereotypes which may be

either positive or negative — which influence the way people create their
gender identities.

Gender Stereotyping

A gender stereotype is a widely held belief or generalisation about the behaviours,

characteristics and roles performed by women and men. Female stereotypical roles include
being emotional, caring and in need of protection. Male stereotypical roles include being
rational, career driven and strong. These assumptions can be negative (eg women are
irrational, men are insensitive) or seemingly benign (eg women are nurturing, men are
leaders). However, all stereotyping can be limiting.
Gender stereotypes originate from local culture and traditions. Children learn
what constitutes female and male behaviour from their family and friends, the media,
and institutions including schools and religious bodies. The prevalence of gender
stereotypes in our culture can have an adverse effect on both girls and boys, who are
constantly bombarded with messages about how they should look, behave and play
according to their gender. These socially accepted and often unconscious ideas start to
form in infancy.
Gender stereotypes shape self-perception, affect well-being, attitudes to
relationships and influence participation in the world of work. In a school environment
they affect a young person‘s classroom experience, academic performance
or subject choice. The assumptions we make about boys
and girls may be conscious or unconscious and can result in different
treatment of one group compared to another. Gender stereotypes can have a negative
impact on both boys and girls.
In the classroom, for example, unconscious bias can manifest itself in
teacher-learner interactions. Girls are more likely to be praised for being well- behaved
while boys are more likely to be praised for their ideas and understanding. A
disruptive girl may encounter more criticism than a boy who
exhibits similar behavior, while quiet boys are often overlooked in classrooms. These
expectations can be harmful to both groups. Girls may learn to be compliant and
not take risks, while boys may opt out of education if understanding does not
come readily…
Girls, women, boys and men can have both female and male characteristics.
Gender is not binary and is more complex than being simply female or male. It can instead
be viewed as a spectrum, with people identifying at various points along it,
or at multiple points at the same time (non-binary gender). Some people feel they do
not fit within the spectrum at all (agender).
 What is postcolonial literature?

A good way to start any definition of postcolonial literature is to think about the
origins of the term postcolonialism and how it has been used in literary criticism, from
roughly the late 1980s to present times. The term is sometimes written with a hyphen,
sometimes left unhyphenated, with the two forms used to designate the same areas of interest
by different critics. The hyphenated version was first used by political scientists and economists
to denote the period after colonialism, but from about the late seventies it was turned into
a more wide-ranging culturalist analysis in the hands of literary critics and others. The
unhyphenated version is conventionally used to distinguish it from the earlier iteration that
referred only to specific time period and to indicate a tendency toward literary criticism and
the analysis of various discourses at the intersection of race, gender and diaspora, among
others.

A possible working definition for postcolonialism is that it involves a studied

engagement with the experience of colonialism and its past and present effects, both at the
local level of ex-colonial societies and at the level of more general global developments thought
to be the after-effects of empire. Postcolonialism often also involves the discussion of
experiences such as slavery, migration, suppression and resistance, difference, race, gender
and place as well as responses to the discourses of imperial Europe such as history,
philosophy, anthropology and linguistics. The term is as much about conditions under
imperialism and colonialism proper, as about conditions coming after the historical end of
colonialism. A growing concern among postcolonial critics has also been with racial minorities
in the West, embracing Native and African Americans in the US, British Asians and African
Caribbeans in the UK and Aborigines in Australia and Canada, among others. Because of these
features, postcolonialism allows for a wide range of applications, designating a constant
interplay and slippage between the sense of a historical transition, a socio-cultural location and
an epochal configuration. Edward Said‘s Orientalism (1978) is considered as pivotal in the
shaping of postcolonial studies. In Orientalism, Said argued for seeing a direct correlation
between the knowledges that oriental scholars produced and how these were redeployed
in the constitution of colonial rule.

It should be acknowledged, however, that whatever the developments were that led to the
formation of the field of postcolonial studies, it has to be seen more in terms of a long process
rather than a series of events, with the central impulses of this process coming from a variety
of sources, sometimes outside any concern with colonialism. These may be traced in a variety
of directions, such as in the changing face of global politics with the emergence of newly
independent states; in the wide-ranging re-evaluation begun in the 1980s of the exclusionary
forms of Western reason and in the perception of their complicity with imperial expansion and
colonialist rule; in the debates that raged about empiricism and culturalism in the social
sciences from the 1960s; and in the challenges to dominant discourses of representation
from feminist, gay, and ethnic studies in the 1970s and 1980s.
 Postcolonial literature represents all these conditions and comes from various sources and
inspiration. It includes works such as ... Chinua Achebe‘s Things Fall Apart, Tayeb Salih‘s
Season of Migration to the North, Toni Morrison‘s Beloved, J.M. Coetzee‘s Waiting for the
Barbarians, Salman Rushdie‘s Midnight’s Children, Arundhati Roy‘s The God of Small Things,
..., among many others. Shakespeare‘s Othello, Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest have
been taken as key texts for the application of postcolonial modes of analysis. This suggests that
postcolonial literature is a broad term that encompasses literatures by people from the
erstwhile colonial world, as well as from the various minority diasporas that live in the West.
Postcolonialism has also been a term used to reinterpret Western canonical literature from a
variety of fresh and diverse perspectives. (by Ato Quayson)

Read this text and write a brief summary about the meaning and characteristics of
‘postcolonial literature’
 On Globalization

The concept of globalization refers us to the increasing multi-directional

economic, social, cultural and political connections that are forming across
the world and our awareness of them. Thus globalization involves the
increased compression of the world and our growing consciousness of those
processes. The compression of the world can be understood in terms of the
expansionism of the institutions of modernity while the reflexive intensification
of consciousness of the world can be perceived beneficially in cultural terms.
Globalization is constituted in part by planetary scale economic activity
that is creating an interconnected if uneven world economy. Thus, 200
transnational corporations which produce between one-third and one-half of
world output constitute 50 per cent of the world‘s largest economic units. In the
financial sector the collapse of the European Exchange Mechanism, Black
Monday on the stock exchange and the so-called ‗Asian economic meltdown‘
of the 1990s have demonstrated that states are at the mercy of the global
money markets. The emergence and growth of global economic activity are not
entirely new but the current phase, dating from the early 1970s, is marked
by an acceleration of time–space compression propelled by transnational
companies‘ search for new sources of profit in the face of the crisis of Fordism.
Thus, accelerated globalization refers to a set of related economic activities
understood as the practices of capitalism in its ‗disorganized‘ era.
Globalization is not just an economic matter but is also concerned with
issues of cultural meaning. While the values and meanings attached to place
remain significant, we are increasingly involved in networks that extend far
beyond our immediate physical locations. We are not yet a part of a world-
state or unitary world-culture but we can identify global cultural processes, of
cultural integration and disintegration, that are independent of inter-state
relations. In particular, cosmopolitanism is an aspect of day-to-day Western
life as diverse and remote cultures have become accessible, as signs and
commodities, via our televisions, Certainly, on the level of culture,
globalization is far from an even process of
Western expansion driven by economic imperatives. Rather, it is
better characterized in terms of the disjunctive relationships between flows of
money, technology, media, ideas and people. That is, globalization involves the
dynamic movements of ethnic groups, technology, financial transactions, media
images and ideological conflicts that are not neatly determined by one
harmonious ‗master plan‘. Rather, the speed, scope and impact of these
flows are fractured and disconnected. Metaphors of uncertainty, contingency
and chaos are replacing those of order, stability and systemacity. Globalization
and global cultural flows cannot be understood through neat sets of
linear determinations but are better comprehended as a series of
overlapping, overdetermined, complex and chaotic conditions which, at best,
cluster around key ‗nodal points‘.

Links City, cultural imperialism, glocalization, modernity, postcolonial theory

 Concluding Notes

- This course has tried to deal with various concepts, themes, concerns and problematic
debates that pertain to Cultural Studies.

- Throughout the Semester, a number of key concepts such as culture, language, discourse,
identity, representation, power and Otherness have studied and deployed ‗keys‘ to
analyze and deconstruct various media and cultural texts or discourses.

- In addition to ‗culture‘, which is so comprehensive that it seems to include nearly all the
other concepts, ‗language‘ has been emphatically highlighted as another essential key
concept in this field of Cultural Studies due to its importance as the fundamental
means whereby various media and cultural texts and discourses are expressed and
mediated.

- Here language has been taken as meaning not simply what is written or spoken, but also
all kind of signs/signifiers through which meanings are expressed and communicated like
gestures, movies, pictures, emoticons etc.

- Such terms as ‗discourse‘, ‗representation‘, ‗ideology‘ and power have also been studied
as central key concepts that make it possible to explore the field of Cultural Studies. A good
understanding of such concepts can enable students to apply deconstructive strategies and
critical discourse analysis methods to the study of different texts and discourses.

- Much focus has been laid throughout this course on demonstrating how language,
discourse and representations are by no means neutral or innocent. They are rather
often ideological as they are deployed to serve the interests of those who (re)produce them.

- It has been seen that ‗representations‘, for instance, are no more than ‗re-
presentations‘—i.e. something presented again through the use of language and images
etc: They do not represent reality as such; but they rather construct it in such a way as to
serve ideological, hegemonic or imperialistic aims.

- As representations are often sheer ‗misrepresentations‘ and discursive constructions,

they need to be deconstructed – i.e. analyzed and interrogated critically in such a way
as to lay bare the ideology which is hidden or inherent within them.

- The readers and audiences should not fall victim of the ideology of media and cultural
discourses; they should rather be active and constantly ready to ‗read between the
lines‘ of these discourses. They need to contest, question, resist, problematize and subvert
these discursive and ideological constructs.