Cultural Studies: From Class Formation to Gender Performativity
Thompson: The Making of the English Working Class
E.P. Thompson’s 1963 work, The Making of the English Working Class, has had a profound impact on cultural studies. Thompson traces the formation of the working class between 1780 and 1832, driven by a deep interest in their experiences, struggles, and aspirations. He argues that the working class was not a preordained entity but emerged through active resistance and collective action. Thompson emphasizes the term “working class” over “working classes” to highlight the shared identity forged through common struggles against opposing forces.
Thompson’s methodology involved unearthing overlooked historical moments to demonstrate the ongoing fight and resilience of the working class. He cites examples like the Swing riots, sparked by the introduction of new agricultural technologies that displaced laborers, and the Luddite movement, where textile artisans protested against machinery they believed threatened their livelihoods. Thompson also highlights the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, where peaceful demonstrators demanding political representation were brutally attacked, and the Chartist movement, which sought political rights for the working class.
Thomas Paine and Working Class Radicalism
Thomas Paine’s 1790 publication, The Rights of Man, played a pivotal role in working-class political radicalism. Paine advocated for universal rights and challenged the legitimacy of monarchy and hereditary rule. His work, along with organizations like the London Corresponding Society, faced government suppression, highlighting the repression faced by the working class.
The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions
The Agricultural Revolution, with innovations like the threshing machine, led to labor displacement and unrest. The Swing riots, named after the mythical figure “Captain Swing,” symbolized the anger of rural laborers. Similarly, the Luddite movement emerged in response to the Industrial Revolution, with textile workers destroying machinery they perceived as a threat to their employment. The government’s response to both movements was swift and brutal, using the army to protect industrialists and quell dissent.
The Poor Law and Chartism
The Poor Law of 1834, while reducing the cost of poor relief, subjected recipients to harsh conditions in workhouses. The Chartist movement, active between 1838 and 1848, aimed to secure political rights for the working class through their People’s Charter. The movement faced opposition from those who feared it would lead to societal upheaval.
Woolf and the Suffragettes
Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas
Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas, written during World War II, explores the exclusion of women from power structures. Woolf argues that preventing war requires dismantling the patriarchal system that grants men control over politics, education, law, and finance. She criticizes the societal expectation that upper-class women should not work and challenges the notion that gender roles are biologically determined.
The Suffragette Movement
Woolf’s work resonates with the suffragette movement, which fought for women’s right to vote in the early 20th century. The Women’s Social and Political Union, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, employed direct action tactics like window-smashing and arson to draw attention to their cause. The imprisonment of Dora Thewlis, a teenage mill worker known as the “Baby Suffragette,” and the death of Emily Davison, who ran in front of the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby, highlight the movement’s commitment and the risks they were willing to take.
Challenging Gender Norms
Woolf argues that gender distinctions are socially constructed, citing examples like dress codes and the exclusion of women from professions like law enforcement. The suffragettes challenged these norms through their actions, demonstrating that women could be just as politically engaged and disruptive as men. The matchgirls’ strike of 1888, where women and girls protested against exploitative working conditions, further exemplifies women’s growing awareness of their collective power and their willingness to fight for their rights.
Hoggart, Leavis, and Working-Class Culture
Richard Hoggart and The Uses of Literacy
Richard Hoggart, a scholar from a working-class background, explored the complexities of working-class culture in his book The Uses of Literacy. Hoggart focused on the everyday lives and values of the working class, drawing on his personal experiences to provide an authentic perspective. He challenged simplistic views of working-class culture, arguing that they were not passive recipients of mass culture but active participants who adapted and resisted influences.
Similarities and Differences with Leavis
Hoggart shared some common ground with F.R. and Q.D. Leavis, particularly in their concern about the impact of mass culture and the importance of education. However, Hoggart differed from the Leavises in his emphasis on the agency of the working class and his less elitist view of popular culture. While the Leavises focused on canonical works, Hoggart saw value in the ways working-class communities engaged with and transformed mass-produced entertainment.
Teddy Boys and Post-War Culture
The Teddy Boy subculture, primarily a working-class phenomenon, emerged in post-war Britain. The post-war economic boom provided young people with disposable income, allowing them to develop distinct styles and leisure activities. The Teddy Boy style, with its Edwardian-inspired suits, challenged traditional notions of working-class dress. Contrary to popular belief, the Teddy Boy phenomenon predates the arrival of American rock and roll, demonstrating the evolving cultural landscape of post-war Britain.
Matthew Arnold: Culture as”Sweetness and Ligh”
Defining Culture
as ‘sweetness and light’? Explain what he meant andsay why he thought it was so necessary.Matthew Arnold English Victorian poet and literary and social critic, noted especiallyfor his classical attacks on the contemporary tastes and manners of the “Barbarians”(the aristocracy), the “Philistines” (the commercial middle class), and the “Populace.”He became the apostle of “culture” in such works as Culture and Anarchy (1869).The first chapter of his book is called ‘Sweetness and Light’. He thought that culture,properly described, doesn’t really have in common with curiosity, but in the love andsearch of perfection. It is a study of perfection. It moves by the force of the moral andsocial passion for doing good’. Related to the study of perfection, the definition ofculture cannot be divorced from bringing about positive change. Arnold believed that‘culture believes in making reason and the will god prevail’(206). Matthew Arnoldhighlights that culture is sweetness and light. It makes the “best that has been andknown in the world currently everywhere. He had a purpose, to bring sweetness andlight to everyone, to all the society. That is because in that period only the privilegedcould have rights and they were a few. The only ground which Arnold thought thatcould rest was the disinterested following of knowledge, which he saw as abovereligion and politics. This period was well known for the aim of indoctrinate masses(Victorian age). He said that ‘culture must be above class if we are to make the bestthat has been thought and known in the world current everywhere’ (226.)Some people look down on “culture” because they see it as a knowledge of what’s“in” that serves to distinguish one from the lower classes. Arnold believes that cultureshould be sought out of curiosity, meaning a “liberal and intelligent eagerness aboutthings,” or “a desire after the things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for thepleasure of seeing them as they are” (466). Culture can teach intellectual and moralgood. One who embraces this culture, works to bring about intellectual and moralgood in his life and work to make those things “prevail” in society.Compared to utilitarianism (it argues that decisions should be made according to thegreatest happiness of the greatest number and with relation to the consequences ofan action), this pursuit seems “selfish, petty, and unprofitable”. Moreover, a society ofintellectually and morally developed people, people who seek culture as a “study ofperfection,” is the only truly great society (467). In this sense, culture is actually quitebeneficial. Pursuing culture means realizing what’s important in life. Wealth, health,physicality are all meaningless. Only intellectual and moral development areimportant. As a summary of the definition of ‘sweetness and light’: it is a combinationof knowing how to behave and ‘right reason’Culture is worthwhile because it reminds us of what’s important and renews ourpassion for “sweetness and light” (471). When true culture is achieved, truegreatness occurs, and social classes are destroyed.
HENRY/ JENKINS
Henry Jenkins, an American media scholar and lecturer of the 2nd half of the 20thcentury, deals with different phenomena related to the fan in his book TextualPoachers: Television fans and Participatory Culture. He reflects fan stereotypes suchas the comic, nerdy fan, the psychotic fan, the erotized fan. Moreover, he expressesthe fan as a defensible position within mass culture, in which they are otherwiseseen as a scandalous category, whose interests are alien to a ‘normal’ culturalexperience.The notion of good taste, developed by Pierre Bourdieu, helps Jenkins analyse howthe fan is socially seen and why. The notions of good taste, appropriate conduct oraesthetic merit are not natural or universal, they are acquired and reflect the interestof dominant classes. Our choices have been shaped by experiences as members ofcultural groups, social exchanges and institutionsMoving on, Jenkins also mentions Michel de Certeau in his work. Like him, he posesan alternative conception of fans as readers who appropriate popular texts to servedifferent interests. The readers or spectators transfer the experience of consumingculture into a rich and complex participator culture. Michel de Certeau ‘s termbricolage englobes the result of the fight between producers and consumers; inshort, it is a term used to describe the struggle for authorship or the mastery oflanguage. Of course, producers employ ‘strategies’, since they have power andcontrol and employ a ‘scriptural economy’ that restrains the multiplicity of voices andthe circulation of other meanings. Consumers or users try to change the limitsimposed by producers and conquer their power, through ‘poaching’ or appropriation.However, they cannot fully overcome them, as one can see from the ‘HP Wars’ Thewarner Bros fought against young fanfic authors or Lucasfilm against the proliferationof erotic content including their copyrighted.Fandom is seen as a series of organised efforts to influence programming decisions.In summary, fans build a community and become producers, taking active roles inreclaiming media for their own purposes, but who also struggle actively againstauthoritarian, ‘legitimate’ producers.
JUDITH BUTLER
Judith Butler is an american academic whose theories of the performative nature ofgender and sex were influential within Francocentric philosophy, cultural theory,queer theory, and some schools of philosophical feminism from the late 20th century.Butler´s ideas on gender reflect Michel Foucault´s hypothesis exposed in The Historyof Sexuality.In Butler´s work we have to distinguish between sex, gender and sexuality. Sex isthe distinction between male and female (biological differences). Then we have thegender, which describes the characteristics that a given culture understands asmasculine and femenine. Finally, we have sexuality which concerns how individualsare classified with relation to sexual attitudes and orientation which are often used todefine what is properly male or female.One of Butler´s aims was to criticize “a pervasive (supposition) heterosexualassumption.Through her thinking she made clear her stance on received notions of gender,which are exclusionary because they are homophobic. Through her writing sheestablishes a new normative “gendered way of life”, linked to an effort to open upnew possibilities for gender.Butler addresses basic questions such as: what is a woman or a man, and whetherto be properly “woman” or “man” is to be heterosexual.For Butler, the normative categories of sexuality and gender fail to capture all thesepositions in their descriptive web. For example, a transsexual cannot be describedas male or female, but must be defined as “in-between”. There is also the case oflesbians, that being “butch” has nothing to do with being a man.Butler defines gender as performative. Butler’s basic argument is that sexuality isregulated by society because it attributes typical traits and sexual behaviourdepending on whether you are male or female.