Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field focused on understanding modern society through the lens of culture, power, and politics. It encompasses various approaches such as British cultural materialism, new historicism, American multiculturalism, postmodernism, and postcolonial studies, emphasizing the analysis of both cultural works and the means of their production. The goals of cultural studies include transcending disciplinary boundaries, engaging politically, challenging the separation of high and low culture, and addressing social inequalities.

1. What is Cultural Studies? Discuss
important feature of Cultural Studies?
Name : Radha B. Ghevariya
Paper no. : 8 : The Cultural Studies
Sem : M.A (Sem: 2)
Roll No. : 22
Year : 2015
Submitted to : Smt. S. B . Gardi Department
of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar
University

2. Introduction
•As far as cultural study is concerned , it has
border meaning because we see from various
perspective then an individual can know what
actually it lies in the meaning.
• Generally it means way of living life or it can
also be said that the life style of people and
Matthew Arnold also quote about culture
that it is a march towards perfection.

3. -Culture is derived from Latin word ‘Cultura’.
- ‘To honour’ and ‘perfect’.
- Culture is a symbolic communication.
- Culture is the system of knowledge shared
by a relatively large group of people.
“ Culture is the
learned behaviour of
society or a subgroup”

4. What is Cultural Study ?
“ Cultural studies is the
science of understanding
modern society, with an
emphasis on politics and
power cultural studies is
an umbrella term used to
look at a number of
different subject”

5. Types of Cultural Studies
British Cultural Materialism
New Historicism
American Multiculturalism
Post Modernism and Popular Culture
Postcolonial Studies

6. British Cultural Materialism
- Cultural study is referred to as “ cultural
materialism” in Britain. Matthew Arnold
sought to redefine the “given” of British
culture.
- Edward Burnett Tylor’s pioneering
anthological study ‘primitive culture’

8. New Historicism
- New historicism is a school of literary theory ,
first developed in 1980. the term ‘new
historicism’ was created by the American critic
Stephen Greenbelts.
- A new historicism looks at literature in wider
historical context , examining both how the
writer ‘s times affected the work and how the
work reflects the writer’s times, in turn
recognizing that current cultural contexts colour
that critic’s conclusion.

9. “ The text is historical , and history textual”
Michael Warner phrases “ History is
always historicized”
- Much new historicism focuses on the
marginalization of subjects such as those
identified as withes, the insane, heretics,
vagabonds , and political prisoners.

10. American Multiculturalism
- As a philosophy , multiculturalism began
as part of the pragmatism movement at the
end of the 19th century in Europe and united
states.
- American multiculturalism was come into
existence in 1964 with the passing civil right
Act.
“ Every American should
understand Mexico from the
point of view of the observer of
the conquest and of the history
before the conquest……….”

11. Postmodernism and popular culture
The term ‘postmodernism’ first
entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, with
the publication of The Postmodern Condition
by Jean-Francois Lyotard.
postmodernism question everything
rationalist European philosophy held to be
true. Postmodernism possesses several
element which are necessary which given by
Jean Baudrillard,

12. Postmodernism Aspect
- Jean Baudrillard
Any sign is empty
Virtual Word
Status and Taboos
Hyperreal between The private
and public.

13. Art and
Literature
Music
Building
Literature
Cinema

14. Postcolonial Studies
So far as my reading concerned about this
study of postcolonial we can say that it is
against colonialism because colonialism came
into existence at the beginning of the century
but slowly and steadily some people started to
oppose against it so Anti-colonialism came into
Enlightment so post-colonialism came into
utilization oppose the colonialism though it
came into later on but we can find the post-
colonial study in the play.

15. Four Goals Of Cultural Studies
1)Cultural studies transcends the confines of a
particular discipline such as literary criticism or history.
2) Cultural Studies is Politically Engaged
3) Cultural Study denies the separation of “high” and
“low” or Elite and popular culture
4) Cultural studies analyzes not only the cultural work
but also the means of production

16. Cultural studies transcends the confines of a particular
discipline such as literary criticism or history.
- Practiced in such journals as critical inquiry,
Representations and boundary, cultural studies
involves scrutinizing the cultural phenomenon of
a text. Like: Italian Opera or A Latino
telenovela.
- According to Lawrence Gross berg, Cary
Nelson and Paula Treichler:“Cut across diverse
social and political interests and address many of
the struggles within the current scene.”

17. Cultural Studies is Politically Engaged
- Cultural critics see themselves as
“oppositional”, not only within their own
disciplines but to many of the power structures of
society at large.
-They question inequalities within power
structures and seek to discover models for
restructuring relationships among dominant and
minority.
-Individual subjectivity is culturally
constructed.Such a notion taken to a
philosophical extreme, denies the autonomy of
the individual.

18. Cultural Study denies the separation of “high” and
“low” or Elite and popular culture
- Cultural critics today work to transfer the
term culture to include mass culture, whether
popular, folk or urban.
- Jean Baudrillard and Andreas Huyssen,
cultural critics argues that after world war II
the distinctions among high, low and Mass
culture collapsed
- Often only reflects prevailing social,
economic and political power bases.

19. Cultural studies analyzes not only the cultural
work but also the means of production
Marxist critics have long recognized the
importance of such paraliterary questions:
1) Who supports a given artist?
2) Who published the book?
3) How are these books distributed?
4) Who buys books ?
- Cultural studies thus joins subjectivity.Culture
in relation to individual lives with engagement,
a direct approach to attacking social ills.

20. - Though cultural studies practitioners deny
“humanism” or “the humanities” as
universal categories, they strive for what they
might call “social reason”.
- Often resembles the goals and values of
humanistic and democratic ideals.