Cultural Studies Wars
Posted on | November 15, 2005 |
Chris Rojek has written a great response to an article by Bill Schwarz published in Cultural Studies recently. Schwartz’s piece was couched as a review of Rojek’s book but didn’t really fulfil the function of that genre (even less than I did when I reviewed Rojek’s book [pdf], and that’s saying something). According to Rojek, Theory, Culture & Society were originally going to publish the Schwarz article, and had offered a right of reply in preparation, but decided against going ahead with any of it. When Cultural Studies did, no right of reply was offered, so the response has come out in IJCS. Hmm. Anyway, it’s all really provocative for me right now as I write my chapter on Stuart Hall. And after that I’m writing the one on Larry, who as co-editor of Cultural Studies and a major adherent of Hall’s project also appears to be the implicit focus for Rojek’s critique. Here’s a taste:
It is one thing to affirm that some aspects of contemporary progressive culture, race, politics and policy are consonant with some aspects of Hall’s writing. But this is very different from attributing a causal connection between Hall’s work and progressive change. The attribution of causality is a matter of a combination of historical and comparative analysis and empirical investigation. It cannot be settled by philosophical debate or rhetorical statements. It needs to be substantiated through a mixture of empirical enquiry, comparative and historical analysis and open debate (496)
And:
The permanently beleaguered tone of Schwarz’s review is symptomatic of much of Hall’s own style of writing. It neglects to acknolwedge that, within the Academy, Hall’s version of cultural studies has moved from the periphery to the centre. Hall’s conception of cultural studies is now hegemonic. It is the position that sets the tone of debate in cultural studies and it has shifted the balance of power in affiliated disciplines such as English and sociology, both of which have undergone a ‘cultural turn’, partly in response to Hall’s work.
Although they will not welcome it, it is important to recognize that those attached to Hall’s version of cultural studies consitute a hegemonic power formation operating in a field of multi-paradigmatic complexity and rivalry. They are no longer on the margins or the outside. On the contrary, they supply the plenary speakers at national and international conferences in the discipline; their publications are widely regarded as being in the vanguard; many of them influence the distribution of departmental recruitment and research budgets; and their physical and pedagogic style of presentation is self-consciously depicted as a preferred style of academic cool.
For those of you who witnessed the latest CSAA-forum fracas: funny, isn’t it? That word again - ‘hegemonic’. Cultural studies seems to be suffering from its own success, except that everyone seems equally pissed off and adamant that they aren’t the ones benefitting from it.
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5 Responses to “Cultural Studies Wars”
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November 15th, 2005 @ 4:44 pm
Who isn’t benefitting from it? Certainly those engaged in the internal review of cultural studies (in which I have implicated myself from time to time) seems to be.
Your description of this as ‘war’ is really interesting Mel. It seems some of the most provocative work in cultural studies at the moment revolves around the question of who has the right to account for the field. This provokes intense debate as the speaking position adopted results in (includes?) assumptions about the right to occupy such a position. What flows are a pattern of disagreements about the legitimacy of the speaking position, or more properly, the subsequent contours of the field that emerge from the speaking position. This itself is nothing new; the politics revealed by speaking positions and discontent with the subsequent patterns of representation and power relations revealed are classic cultural studies topics. However, the current works being debated seem retrospective in their assessments of cultural studies, rather than the exploratory reviews accounting for the field that emerged in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Are these current descriptions of the field critical in their assessment more than previous edited collections attempting to ground the field by demonstrating its politics? Are the politics revealed by editing policies “less” controversial because absences can be filled by supplementary readings that may supplement, rather than challenge, the coherence of the account?
The current round of disputes articulate disjuncture across the field, which makes your suggestion that cultural studies may be suffering from its own success seem quite apt - is this a civil skirmish rather than a war? Are there distinct, opposing bodies taking aim at each other, or is cultural studies starting to eat itself?
November 16th, 2005 @ 6:52 am
Bleh. Here’s the argument, it’s not new:
1) Person X isn’t *really* political. They only sound political. [This is often followed with 'What is person X doing about Zimbabwe, they're pretty quiet about that, ha!']
2) Even though Person X takes the moral high ground they are in fact the ones in power! That’ll take a bit of the wind out of your sails eh?
The really simple issue is that these sorts of declamatory arguments never specifically account for what the arguer is doing about it. So in this case, for example, we should be suspicious of Hall’s “hegemony” (because it’s hegemonic!) and hearing more from… what, exactly? White guys like Rojek who write about leisure? Yeah, he’s representing the marginalised voices alright. Give me a break.
As Josh suggests, a reading of this positionality that can look forward would be helpful.
November 16th, 2005 @ 10:18 am
Danny, have you read the article? I don’t think this is a particularly fair account of what’s going on. If it doesn’t interest you, that’s another thing, and I don’t blame you! But as someone who’s writing about this stuff, simplifying the issues doesn’t strike me as the best way to understand them, just as saying it’s all been said before doesn’t leave me in much of a position to recognise something new if it did happen. Rojek’s point, that cultural studies is made up of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ - the former being highly defensive of their own, to the point of uncritical loyalty - seems to me a timely and provocative gesture, not least because it is an observation that we might see as making sense of the field from its beginnings. If the ‘insiders’ refuse to recognise this, why not keep saying it?
November 16th, 2005 @ 8:09 pm
No I haven’t read the article, but I have read enough of his tripe to not really care! The fact that there are insiders and outsiders in a field is a completely banal point from my perspective. Anyone working in a tradition can be made to look like an “uncritical loyalist”. especially when someone like him is just so obivously invested in critiquing positions more than actually building on the work of Hall in particular. Here’s my question for Rojek. What do you stand for, who do you represent? Hall, whatever his other failings, can at least answer that.
What I am saying is that Rojek’s line is not new. Of course we should recognise new things when they happen. But his rhetorical stance this argument (repeated in various forms across a number of different articles) is not new, but all too familiar. He’s a bloody UK Professor! He is at the bloody centre of (usually subtly) anti-poco, anti-feminist, anti-queer CS “iconoclasm”. Seriously Mel, I think your book might have you a little too wrapped up in the CS hierarchy.
I can stomach the anti-Hallism of young neo-deluzians before this, sorry! At least they’re trying to go somewhere with their formalism.
November 17th, 2005 @ 12:11 pm
That’s more like it: being specific.
And of course I’m wrapped up in this. The book is about cultural studies! But I don’t think I’m endorsing any hierarchy. You’re making me feel like I can’t share what I’m reading without having a political position on it.