CLAIMS
Unsurprisingly, considering the key figures of British cultural studies, the field was majorly oriented toward political problems. Hoggart, Williams and Hall chose to enter into the educational arena because it “was the social and cultural form in which they saw the possibility of reuniting what had been in their personal histories disrupting: the value of higher education and the persistent educational deprivation of the majority of their own originary [sic] or affiliated class” (“Uses of Culture” 25). The formation of British cultural studies coincided with the break in the European communist movement. Much like Marxism they were chiefly interested in power structures and the forces of domination and resistance. It is a common misconception …show more content…
In the book Hoggart emphasizes the effect of public culture on the individual’s private life; he writes that they working class “are nevertheless being presented continually with encouragements towards an unconscious uniformity” (The Uses of Literacy 264). He argues that old forms of culture are being replaced with “faceless” mass culture (266). The most important theoretical claim of his work is the idea of a system of shared cultural meanings which sustains the relationship between different features of culture. After this the most notable thing he accomplished was founding the CCCS. He let the role of pioneer pass on to Raymond Williams. Raymond Williams published many academic books and made a few revolutionary claims in the field of British cultural studies. His central focus was on defining terms. A year after Hoggart’s work Williams published Culture and Society. He applied close textual analysis to discuss books in relation to an idea, but he was unable to get very far in his theory in this book because in the end he remains caught between the four definitions of culture that the book explores. The book does provide the foundation for his later work titled The Long Revolution …show more content…
Culture presents itself in various forms and it does not do the study justice to examine the variety of mediums as though it were all literature or written text. Richard Johnson, the man who assumed the position of director of the CCCS after Hall, addressed whether or not cultural studies should be an academic discipline in his article titled “What Is Cultural Studies Anyway?” One of the major complaints about cultural studies is that the subject matter is entirely too encompassing. This broadness has caused the field to be fragmented. Johnson believes that if the field does not establish “central directions of [their] own, [they] will be pulled hither and thither by the demands of academic self-reproduction and by the academic disciplines from which [their] subject, in part, grows (Johnson 41). Lawrence Grossberg, a university professor of cultural studies and alumni of the CCCS, elaborates further on the difficulties this
Unsurprisingly, considering the key figures of British cultural studies, the field was majorly oriented toward political problems. Hoggart, Williams and Hall chose to enter into the educational arena because it “was the social and cultural form in which they saw the possibility of reuniting what had been in their personal histories disrupting: the value of higher education and the persistent educational deprivation of the majority of their own originary [sic] or affiliated class” (“Uses of Culture” 25). The formation of British cultural studies coincided with the break in the European communist movement. Much like Marxism they were chiefly interested in power structures and the forces of domination and resistance. It is a common misconception …show more content…
In the book Hoggart emphasizes the effect of public culture on the individual’s private life; he writes that they working class “are nevertheless being presented continually with encouragements towards an unconscious uniformity” (The Uses of Literacy 264). He argues that old forms of culture are being replaced with “faceless” mass culture (266). The most important theoretical claim of his work is the idea of a system of shared cultural meanings which sustains the relationship between different features of culture. After this the most notable thing he accomplished was founding the CCCS. He let the role of pioneer pass on to Raymond Williams. Raymond Williams published many academic books and made a few revolutionary claims in the field of British cultural studies. His central focus was on defining terms. A year after Hoggart’s work Williams published Culture and Society. He applied close textual analysis to discuss books in relation to an idea, but he was unable to get very far in his theory in this book because in the end he remains caught between the four definitions of culture that the book explores. The book does provide the foundation for his later work titled The Long Revolution …show more content…
Culture presents itself in various forms and it does not do the study justice to examine the variety of mediums as though it were all literature or written text. Richard Johnson, the man who assumed the position of director of the CCCS after Hall, addressed whether or not cultural studies should be an academic discipline in his article titled “What Is Cultural Studies Anyway?” One of the major complaints about cultural studies is that the subject matter is entirely too encompassing. This broadness has caused the field to be fragmented. Johnson believes that if the field does not establish “central directions of [their] own, [they] will be pulled hither and thither by the demands of academic self-reproduction and by the academic disciplines from which [their] subject, in part, grows (Johnson 41). Lawrence Grossberg, a university professor of cultural studies and alumni of the CCCS, elaborates further on the difficulties this