INTS 211 Final Review

Know what discipline/area of study Williams' expanded definition of culture is dependent upon or what part of it he needs to explain "material" aspects of culture

Williams' expanded definition of culture is the interaction between everyday meanings: values (abstract ideals), norms (definite principles or rules) and material/symbolic goods; Williams connection between anthropology and the interpretation of culture (e.g. literature and arts) exemplifies cultural studies' interdisciplinary approach; Comprehending culture as a 'whole way of life' had the pragmatic consequence of splitting off the concept from the 'arts'

Be able to identify which of those changes we focused on most centrally in this class

Youth cultures

Know how Hall defines culture

A semi-autonomous space

Know the term used to describe Althusser's approach (he studies "human behavior" not by studying what people do but by looking only at how the world around them and how it is organized)

Anti-humanist

Know the difference between base and superstructure

Base: A social formation must continuously and perpetually reproduce labor and relations Superstructure: The relations of production reflect the interactions between workers as well as between the workers and owners

Know the difference between base and superstructure (2)

Base: The base consists of the forces, the means, and the relations of production; The forces are the workers & the technical knowledge to perform the work & the means are the materials of production: raw materials, tools, and machines Superstructure: The superstructure arises from the base and consists of culture and ideology; Culture includes the laws, politics, art, etc. & ideology includes the world views, values, and beliefs (ISAs)

Be able to describe what a "regressive" (not a progressive) historical bloc is

Blocs are successful if they can "universalize" make general and total their political program

Know the role that politics plays in the context of significant economic change

But, our economic system, "capitalism" always goes through "crisis" tendencies that are associated with employment, profitability, the environment, international conflict, etc. Different political groups express the "imbalance" of these social forces differently; This is how people mobilized politically; but, they are only mobilized politically if they can see the relationship between different ideologies and a different organization of the society around them

Know how the act of consumption is described in cultural studies/what people do to cultural commodities

Consumption is always productive. "Meanings are produced, altered, and managed at the level of use by people who are active producers of meanings" aka "We make culture... We are the audience for our own sentiment. When they become commodities we no longer see ourselves in them... A kind of feedback loop" - from slides

Know what theory is attributable to Williams

Cultural Materialism: the representations and practices of daily life in the context of the material conditions of their production.

Know what term Raymond Williams uses to describe the relationship between the traditional and creative aspects of daily cultural life

Culture

Explain how the "traditional" aspects of culture work/what effect they have on societies

Culture is concerned with tradition and social reproduction: Williams thought that it was important to intervene in the social processes that "reproduce culture" in particular through education. There, he wanted the working class' culture (their overwhelming and collective contributions to British society and politics) to be reflected in their education. He described this as "the long march through the institutions."

Be able to identify the changes that postwar Britain experienced

Declining superpower/ empire'Americanization' influenced by the emergence of popular culture in the USExpansion of communications/ technologyEmergence of Youth Cultures (connected to americanization)Slow and steady dissolutions of an old 'class structure'Rise of a 'newly monied' class not attached to old forms of statusDilution of the existing populations (english, welsh, irish, scottish, etc)Rise of a black diasporic culture (from the commonwealth, caribbean, etc)

Know what term is used/specified as a form of articulation

Design

Explain how the "creative" aspects of culture work/what kind of effect on a society

Explaining how the formal (the 'long march') and the popular, together, give rise to something new is what William's theory of cultural materialism is responding to.

Know what relationship hegemony explains

Explains the relationship between power and governance in democratic societies; It shows that power resides outside of the administration of society through the state (governance); It shows that the state is necessary to coordinate the power of "class rule"; It explains that all struggles are mediated by the organization of classes and fractions of classes into blocs

Know what term Karl Marx used to describe what market products and services conceal

Fetishism

Know how cultural gatekeepers work on us/affect us

Fiske: "between 80 and 90 percent of new products fail despite extensive advertising." A product goes through further refinement or adaptation into the "institutional presences" that signal (identify, locate, explain, justify, approve) the entry of a commodity into the market. This further specifies and differentiates culture Most importantly, there is the immediate social and cultural sphere (daily interactions) that are intensive, intimate, and work up us at the smallest level. This is where the process of cultural redefinition and popular appropriation begin. This is a key point where a commodity becomes converted through use, criticism, adaptation, rejection once it is CONSUMED

Be able to define "organic quality"

He explained that as economic forces changed the organization of society, or the population into jobs, schooling, healthcare, a general standard of life, changed either slightly or significantly; How do economic changes benefit people, how is this explained, legitimated, and justified by business owners, politicians, and others?

Know what concept or theory Antonio Gramsci is most well-known for

Hegemony

Know what term in Althusser's work is defined through the phrase "the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence"

Ideology

Know the term or terms that describes how less well-resourced groups use materials transmitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture

In fact, the authors argue, that this process hybrid and transcultural—how groups with less power and prominence, less well resourced select and invent form materials transmitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture

Be able to define the concept of a bloc or historical bloc

It explains that all struggles are mediated by the organization of classes and fractions of classes into blocs When there is a substantial but old way of work and life that contradictswhat is emerging as organic to the economy and society, politicalgroups and fractions of classes "work together" to try to stave off change or produce it: a bloc. When hegemony enables the leading bloc to constitute a set of historical tasks for the society as a whole, they begin to look for social groups and institutions to conform and support them.

Know what "political systems" the concept of hegemony pertains to

It shows that power resides outside of the administration of society through the state (government). It shows that the state is necessary to coordinate the power of "class rule". It explains that all struggles are mediated by the organization of classes and fractions of classes into blocs

Know the term that (depends on the answer to number 9 above) specifies a form of articulation that changes or is diversified across a range of different cultural groups

Lifestyling: responsible and representational design and visual communication diversified across cultural groups specifying these elements through marketing and publicity, embedded in the product itself, and at the points of consumption; Flexible Specialization: A production technique that allows for small and limited production of variations on a mass produced item & it requires a larger, mobile, and cheaper labor force, innovations in automation, and control over the supply side (limited production) that doesn't change mass production but, rather, enhances it

Know what the term "organic" all on its own, refers to

Means that a specific and sweeping economic, social, and technological change requires new forms (skill) and a new organization of work, it changes consumption patterns, it introduces a new socialization process (a way to use that commodity), etc.

Be able to define the two sub-system of cultural production

One subsystem manages and organized the reproduction of popular sentiments into an object or product that can be sold (Calculation, production, points of distribution)

Know what three cultural forms emerge in Britain in the latter half of the 20th century

Popular, the sub, and the counter

Know the difference between, practices, rituals, and institutions (I will ask you to identify one of these terms)

Practices can be the expectation for people to follow certain rules, get certain jobs, etc. To meet the expectation of the institution. Rituals make these practices useful. For example, "Even the notion of the "rational individual" is a construct that the family, school, religion, intra, and extramural sports and clubs produces and that is demonstrated, time and again, by measurement and the provision of resources, values, and choices in different forms." The institution shapes practices to make them fit the institution the most positively.

Know why Williams was concerned with cultural change know what "group" was the focus of his concern

Rap, hip hop, rave groups?- This could be connected with the way in which Hip-Hop, for example, reproduces and changes aspects of African-American musical forms and the values of its historically developed lived culture, that is, what Hip-Hop means to young African-Americans.Working class?He was concerned with the social processes that reproduce culture, specifically education; he wanted the working class' contributions to culture to be reflected in their education, b/c before his time, education only involved the creative, high class aspect of culture

Be able to define "organic crisis"

Represents an imbalance between the economy and social life (e.g. wealth & inequality)

Know what two terms pertain to the concept of the conjuncture and refer to how history develops across time

Rupture and settlement

Know what about Hall's definition of culture differentiates culture from economics and society

Social relations are shaped by institutions (ex. education) politics govern institutions and manage economies and societies; but culture is the only space that is somewhat free to expect change

Know the term that the authors use to describe how value networks must be "specifically related to people and organizations, markets and relationships, knowledge and integration, and meanings and experiences"

Soft-Service Innovation

Know the term Althusser uses to describe the aspect of society that principally organizes politics, economics, and social roles, relations, and institutions

Structuralism

Be able to define Structural Marxism

Structuralism looks at the organization of politics, society (including economic relations) as the single most important explanans of human existence; Maxism demands and directs these interests, with a heightenment on the material but also on control, forces and relations

Althusser's structural model was influenced by a concept in anthropology and psychoanalysis that describes relationships as roles and responsibilities. Know this term

Subjectivity is the social & cultural process of identity formation. It's the material and meaningful relationship between ourselves and representations (social categories); we confuse our individuality with it; subjectivity is formed in the negotiation between the cultural world and ourselves

Hall argues that Britain's colonial legacy was a part of daily life. Know how, or through what things, British people experienced colonialism on a daily basis

Sugar, tea, cotton and cocoa are all products of colonialism.

Be able to define the two sub-system of cultural production (2)

The other "subsystem" is creative;Refines the symbolic pool into the actual object or product that reproduces or objectifies cultural sentiment as a product (product design, advertising)

Be able to define the symbolic pool

The reflection, in material culture, represents emerging tastes that have not yet been converted into a commodity

Know what event in Britain gave rise to new forms of popular and contemporary culture

WWII, fall of British Empire

Know what the two sub-systems are called when they are defined together

The "culture industry" is comprised of the two subsystems

Know what most cultural industries need if they produce their own content (it's a part of the definition in #12)

The "culture industry" represented by the red funnel, is comprised of two "subsystems" one that manages and organizes the reproduction of popular sentiments into an object or product that can be sold (calculation, production, points of distribution) The other "subsystem" is creative. It refines the symbolic pool into the actual object or product that reproduces or objectifies cultural sentiment as a product (product design, advertising)

Define hegemony

The ability to advance the interests of a fraction of a class as a broader social program

Be able to define "culture industries"

The authors define "cultural industries" as based on tangible or intangible cultures

Know what part of the process of the CPP the meaning and use of cultural commodities signals

The authors define a meaning system as The sum of shared meanings, rituals, norms, and traditions among people (Geertz, 1973). Goods derived from cultural industries have an aesthetic or semiotic content (Scott, 2000). They have an influence on our understanding of the world, drawing on and helping to constitute our inner, private lives, and our public selves (The market?)

Know what a "value networks" is and what is has to use to achieve its goals

The cooperation of various small enterprises in strengthening their competitive capabilities and their ability to cope with rising business challenges; they are capable of linking various enterprises together (Need to be periodically updated with service innovations, enabled by evolving technologies).

Know what theoretical framework or model is developed in the Walkman reading

Theoretical model based on the articulation of a number of distinct processes whose interaction can and does lead to variable and contingent outcomesCircuit of Culture; Cultural Production Process (CPP)The circuit of culture: theoretical framework that provides a way to theorize relationships, or the articulation, between components in a social formation

Be able to describe/define these two terms

Thinking historically in cultural studies is not an evolutionary development but a series of ruptures and settlements that are associated with political responses to problems (or struggles) that emerge from out of culture- the management of economies and societies

Be able to define Cultural Gatekeepers

Those involved in the mediation between the production of cultural goods and the production of consumer tastes