Taste Test Thursday - Culture & Materialism (Chapter 2)

Williams, Raymond (2005). “Chapter 2,” Culture and Materialism: Selected Essays. New York, NY: Verso. 11-63.

“One order of psychic x-ray vision, please,” said Raymond Williams. Actually he said, “We need a theory” – a new critical history of literature and society…a new cultural theory to examine the production of the arts, including literature, because he believes they are “materials so laden with values that if we do not deal directly with them we have literally nothing to deal with” (14). Williams might as well have said he needed psychic x-ray vision because his cultural theory seeks to extrapolate meaning beyond the art’s or book’s physical manifestation. The purpose is to study material objects within the literature as “projected reality” (16). Art and literature are rare physical forms which embody and communicate a multitude of cultural values thus related to social history. In order for meanings in literature to be communicated, the materials in which the literature writes about or incorporates in its narrative are coded with cultural understanding. To understand past coding, one must understand the hegemonic culture which dominated to derive the traditional values. It is important to note that Williams also believes that hegemonic values are not exclusionary. Though these values and meaning may dominate, culture consists of “alternative opinions and attitudes” which are recorded as well. Since literature is such an integral element of culture and social history, they cannot be separated and should not be studied separately. To study society one must study history and literature; to study history one must study the literature and society; to study literature one must study society and history. Additionally, one is not studying the object or the artifact, rather one is studying the materials projected in the artifact.

How does this apply to literature?

Williams is the first critical thinker encounters thus far who sees the connection of cultural artifacts that are literally written into form by language and words. These artifacts of culture are his “projected realities.” Just to show you how much a Trekkie I am, I envision this very much as a ship’s hologram – real but not real.

The book is real. I can feel it. It is paper, ink and glue. The book has a function. It communicates by being a vehicle for words and language. The language transmits ideas and forms from the real world. Therefore, not only is the book an artifact but the ideas as well. These are what an old anthropology professor called “ideofacts.”

How do we study history in literature? How do we write it in literature? That’s going to take a bit more exploring. 

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Taste Test Thursday - Madness and Civilization

Michel Foucault’s “A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason” is more than a historical examination of madness, more than an interlacing of names, places and dates, more than a history lesson. Rather, this text is a linguistical exploration of madness through objects (lazar houses, ship of fools, places of confinement, hospitals, & asylums), as well as literature, art, language, religions, social geography, political turmoil, economic purveyors and other filament symbols. This comprises a unique cultural study. Utilizing these different sources, Foucault is able to weave them together to reconstruct the meaning of madness through different historical and cultural periods while tracing the threads of evolutionary meaning of “madness” and “reason.” During different stripes of time, “madness” embodies a variety of objects in tangible and intangible forms which Foucault stitches together with picturesque words. He speaks of the “imaginary landscape,” “surface of things,” “geography of haunted places,” “model of animality,” “world of melancholia,” “material reality of its sounds,” etc… He uses language to embroider a comprehensive piece of cultural history by illustrating the intangible aspects of culture represented in tangible forms. Additionally, Foucault demonstrates that the meaning of madness changes as cultural values change.

How does this apply to literature?

            Michel Foucault’s text serves as an example of the methodology outlined in Doing Cultural Studies. However, rather than examining a tangible object, he attempted to examine an intangible subject, “madness.” It’s important to note he’s examining the subject, not just trying to define it; although definition is part of the process because he’s seeking cultural definition. In order to fully examine the subject, he seeks tangible objects in which the cultural definition has imprinted on. These are in the form of buildings, art and literature. While these forms are a reflection of the society, they also directly influence the society and its daily practices concerning politics, economics and religion. Throughout the layering of these examination is Foucault’s ability to define and redefine the meaning of “madness” through various representations.

I think I need to read more of Michel Foucault! 

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Taste Test Thursday - Doing Cultural Studies

            Doing Cultural Studies is an attempt to tackle the contortionist definition of cultural studies’ methodology. It is one that is continually being wrestled into form. The methodology of cultural studies as proposed in this text is cyclical. It allows for the constant evaluation of new sources of evidence/input/information in a continual evaluative pattern. The evaluative pattern is called the “circuit of culture” and consists of five divisions which cross-reference each other. In order to develop an understanding of cultural “meaning” a continuous juggling act is performed among a circus of performers.  

The juggling act consists of various forms of analysis with regards to cultural practices. The most common practice is the analysis of an artifact’s history. This features questions such as, “Who made it?” or “Where did it come from?” This analysis of cultural identity I call the “History Lesson.” The second practice analyzed is called production which I think is an inaccurate term for studying the imprinting of culture to objects. I hesitate to use the word “on” or “in” because it is more about the idea of culture being “embodied” in an object. This requires the reviewer to see beyond the material form of an object to the ideas it manifests. The third practice reviewed is consumption and how manufacturing objects influences or is influenced by culture. Fourth is an analysis through the practice of regulation which is actually a system of classification where objects are compared and derive relational languages.

These four modes of analyses feed into a fifth practice called representation which I picture as the juggler’s hands constantly manipulating information to construct meaning. This meaning expressed through language which is a “set of signs or a signifying system to represent things and exchange meaning about them” (13). Thus, this cultural studies model allows one to develop a tentative conclusion about a culture and/or cultural artifact with the understanding that those conclusion may/will change with the input of additional information, perspective or time. Using this form of evaluation permits the inclusion of cultural processes which are intangible, such as the consideration of “signs, images, languages, beliefs” (1-2) and allows one to decipher and communicate meaning of things.

             

How does this apply to literature?

Using this method, literature is one way in which I can derive cultural meaning. For years the correct method of studying literature was by studying its history. Today, Norton Anthology literature collection still uses this method. Before you begin reading the actual literary text, a biography is supplied at the beginning containing information about the author, who they were and perhaps the time period in which they are writing. This history lesson is an examination of the literature’s identity. As you begin to read the text, you subconsciously notice the materials of the text, such as the paper, the glue and the ink. However, the materials of the object are not what interest you. It is the ideas embodied by the text that interest you. You are analyzing the object’s production. As you read the ideas expressed from the text, you may wonder how these ideas affected the world around them or the effect of consumption. During the course of subconscious juggling enters the practice of comparisons and relational information in which object and ideas are categorized or regulated. All these activities are an attempt to derive meaning from the intangible object of language and ideas because literature represents culture.

Take it a step further though, “How does one derive meaning from an intangible object within an intangible object?” There’s a mind bender!

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