"The Photographic Message" by Barthes - summary and overview

Overview

In "The Photographic Message," Roland Barthes analyzes the message of a press photograph, which he sees as composed of three parts: the source of emission, the channel of transmission, and the point of reception. While the emission and reception of the message fall within the field of sociology, the photograph itself requires a specific method of analysis focused on its unique structure.

Barthes argues that the photograph is a continuous message without a code, as it is an analogue of reality. However, he suggests that the photographic message is not purely denoted but also connoted through various procedures, such as trick effects, pose, objects, photogenia, aestheticism, and syntax. These procedures add a second-order message derived from a code that is communicated to the public.

Barthes highlights the paradox of the photographic message, which is both objective and invested, natural and cultural. He suggests that the connoted message in a photograph is produced by a modification of the reality itself, of the denoted message. The photograph allows the photographer to conceal the preparation to which he subjects the scene to be recorded.

Barthes emphasizes the importance of understanding the mode of imbrication of denoted and connoted messages to reply to the ethical paradox of being neutral and objective while creating a connoted message. He concludes that the photographic message is a double structure-denoted-connoted, and the connoted message develops on the basis of a message without a code.

Summary of "The Photographic Message"

This "The Photographic Message" provides a detailed analysis of the various connotation procedures of photographic images, shedding light on the intricate relationship between the image and its cultural context. Barthes explores different aspects of photographic connotation, including gesture, pose, objects, photogenia, aestheticism, and syntax, and shows how each of these elements contributes to the overall meaning of a photograph.

One of the key points made in "The Photographic Message" is that the code of connotation is historical and depends on the reader's cultural situation. The author argues that the meaning of a photograph is not fixed or objective but is rather shaped by the cultural codes and assumptions of the society in which it is produced and consumed. This means that the same photograph can be read in different ways by different people, depending on their cultural background and knowledge.

Another important aspect of photographic connotation that the author explores is the role of text in accompanying a photograph. Barthes argues that the text accompanying a photograph is a parasitic message designed to connote the image, and the image no longer illustrates the words. In other words, the text is secondary to the image and is used to supplement or enhance the meaning of the photograph.

"The Photographic Message" also discusses the paradoxical nature of the photograph, which transforms an inert object into a language and the unculture of a "mechanical" art into the most social of institutions. The author suggests that this paradox arises from the fact that the photograph is both an objective record of reality and a highly subjective medium of cultural expression. The photograph captures a moment in time and space, but its meaning is always shaped by the cultural codes and assumptions that surround it.

In summary, "The Photographic Message" provides a fascinating exploration of the complex and multifaceted nature of photographic connotation. It shows how the meaning of a photograph is shaped by a range of cultural, historical, and linguistic factors, and how the photograph itself is a paradoxical medium that both captures and transforms reality. Whether you are a photographer, a visual artist, or simply someone interested in the power of images to shape our understanding of the world, this document is sure to provide valuable insights and perspectives.

Know more:

Roland Barthes Explained

Death of the Author

Rehtoric of the Image

On Photography

Elements of Semiology

The Pleasure of the Text

Best Books By Roland Barthes - A recommanded reading list

Gayatri Spivak / "Can the Subaltern Speak?" - short critical review

Gayatri Spivak / "Can the Subaltern Speak?" - review 

Gayatri Spivak devotes the first and main part of "Can the Subaltern Speak" to launching a massive attack on Foucault and Deleuze – two of the main figures of contemporary critical theory, and therefore Spivak's offensive can be considered as directed at this academic field in general.  Spivak doesn’t hold back in criticizing Foucault and Deleuze , and turns to especially insulting allegations, accusing them in cooperating with capitalism and imperialism, in essentialism,  positivism, in false claims to objectivity and transparency,  institutionalism and chauvinism.  Spivak uses Marx and through rereading him criticizes those that to a large extent work within the tradition founded by him. Spivak employed a deconstructionist tactic which reads the objects of her criticism "against themselves". Finally, to add insult to injury, she appeals to their eccentric "black sheep" of the family, Jacques Derride, who's method she favors over that of Foucalt and Deleuze. And all through her offensive Spivak makes sure to raise the shield of subject position that is supposed to neutralize the meaning of the words at the bottom of "Can the Subaltern Speak?"  - "California University, Berkeley".

And so Spivak joins Edward Said and other researchers before her of non-western origin that employ western thought and methods in order to criticize the way in which western cultures and academic discourse are representing the third world.

This means that Spivak's title – "Can the Subaltern Speak?" has another question folded inside of it, a question that is addresses to a larger extent in "Can the Subaltern Speak?" than the question formulated in the title, and that question is "Can the oppressor Speak?". It seems that spivak's (and Said's) answer to this question is a definite no, at least not without having their ethnocentrism and economical interests effecting the way they speak and eventually being a repressive act.  The inability, or invalidity, of westerners to speak about the other is derived, so is implied by Spivak, from their inability to listen to the other and understand him without enforcing their own western consciousness and values upon him. In the circle drawn by Spivak the colonial oppressor cannot speak about the Subaltern that he cannot hear since the subaltern cannot speak since the oppressor cannot listen to him. With everybody interlocked in this deaf-dumb cycle, it seems that Spivak leaves room for only one voice to speak – her own ,the female hybrid researcher that now poses the same claim for transparency and objectivity for which she criticized Foucault and Deleuze.

See also: Postcolonialism Theroy Explained

Understanding the Subaltern: Spivak and Who Speaks for the Marginalized?

Gayatri Spivak / "Can the Subaltern Speak?" - review - summary part 1 - summary part 2

Here you can find an introduction to spivak's thought and summaries of her main works.

"Cultural Studies Vs. Political Economy: Is Anybody Else Bored with this Debate?" by Lawrence Grossberg – review and summary

Lawrence Grossberg's  "Cultural Studies  Vs. Political Economy: Is Anybody Else Bored with this Debate?" (1995) is a reply to Nicholas Garnham' attack on cultural studies in his "Political Economy and Cultural Studies: Reconciliation or Divorce?" article which ensued the cultural studies Vs political economy debate over the pages of Critical Studies in Mass Communication. Grossberg believes that one of the key points of disagreement between cultural studies and political economy is the weight the two approaches ascribe the economy as a determining factor of social formations. Grossbergs argues against the political economy reductionist approach which sees capitalism as a universal, unvaried structure with no variations in time and place.

Grossberg starts out by claiming that there is nothing novel about Garnham's criticism of cultural studies, and that this criticism arises from a misunderstanding of the relationship between cultural studies and political economy. Grossberg argues that cultural studies did not reject political economy, just the manner in which some political economists tended to their subject matter. On the other hand Grossberg agrees that cultural studies at times tended to over-celebrate culture while paying less warranted attention to the larger economic contexts.

 Political economy's main problem, in the eyes cultural studies according to Grossberg, is it’s ahistorical and universal perceptions which halt exactly at the point in which cultural studies begin their articulation of specific time and place societies. Grossbeg also claims that Garnham does to cultural studies what political economy does to society, that is reduce it from a complex to a black-and-white nature. Another aspect of Garnham's attack which Grossberg notes is his "critique by absence", that is criticizing a position for what it does not do or say. But this is also misplace for there has been significant work done in cultural studies regarding cultural production, reproduction and institutions, and not just consumption.

Grossberg continues to wonder what is the distinction, if there is any, between popular culture and dominant culture in the context of capitalism. He claims that cultural studies are engaged with people's experience, and the way to comply with and/or resist their subordination, an engagement which is crucial if they are ever to overthrow these power structures that are, admittedly, largely created by what political economy researches but is also sustained and reproduced by what cultural studies are concerned with.

Paul Gilroy: "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity" – review and summary

In his "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity" Paul Gilroy discusses the complexity of the concept of "identity". Gilroy heavily criticizes the essential discourse about blacks that is, so Gilroy asserts, prevailing in the academy. Gilroy stresses the constructive interaction of displaced ethnicities with other cultures which works to dynamically transform their sense of identity.

At the opening of "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity" Paul Gilroy argues that being both European and black requires a type of double consciousness (a term borrowed from Du Bois). This assertion alone already attacks exclusivist discourses of either/or that often characterize nationalistic stances. The dual identity of the western black is not composed of essential historical roots, for both their original identity and the European modern world have undergone transformation and reconfiguration over time. Gilroy claims that the subjective dichotomy of black and white, introduced in modern times, is far from a thing of the past, and they still continue to function by relating the concept of nationality with that of culture.

What Gilroy is essentially trying to say in "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity " is that the notion of hybridity goes both ways, and even the brutality of European cultures towards other cultures did not prevent them from being also influenced by their subordinates. Gilroy is trying to examine the impact that black thought had on what he calls the "cultural insiderism" on nationalistic thought, stemming from the notions of cultural differences. "cultural insiderism" "constructs the nation as an ethnically homogenous object", a construction that Gilroy aims at challenging by noticing how racial politics transverse and reform European identity.

"Cultural studies in black and white"

In "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity" Paul Gilroy is also critical of his own discipline of origin, cultural studies which contain, so he claims, a "secondary ethnic aspect" and an association with England and the ideas of Englishness which lead to an "ethno-historical specificity" of cultural studies. The nationalistic inclinations and ethnocentric modern traditions which viewed the state as a distinct cultural, economic and political unit are according to Gilroy in need of some serious modification. Traditional thought (from all sides) sees black and white relations in England as a collision between fully formed and distinct ethnic identities.

What Gilroy is essentially saying is that present day racism is the inheritance of the modern conception of the nation-state as established by and for a homogenous culture, and that those modernistic, Enlightenment lines of thought are still very much present in contemporary cultural studies, sociology and other social sciences. Esthetics is also a matter in which modern day society also still entertains residuals of the Eurocentric efforts to articulate what is universally beautiful.

As hinted by the title "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity", Gilroy argues that taking about "English blacks" of "American blacks" disregards the communal experience of slave trade victims which centers around the Atlantic ocean. He therefore suggested talking about the "black Atlantic" culture which ties the identities of the African diaspora. Taking the black Atlantic as a single unit, Gilroy suggests, transcends nationalistic, consequently ethnocentristic, paradigms which plagued British cultural studies.

Paul Gilroy views the black Atlantic as "framing the doorway" of blacks' double consciousness. He uses the historic example of Martin Delany to illustrate this point while also addressing the tension between "rootedness" and a view of identity as a mediated process. Gilroy sees Martin Delany's writings as a mixture of pan-Africanism and Enlightenment themes, and while Gilroy thinks Delany's Christian motifs to be "discordant" one might argue that this sits well with the hybridity that Gilroy celebrates. What interests Gilroy in regards to Martin Delany is also his travelling across the Atlantic as well as his self proclaimed scientific stance with accompanied his political abolitionist opinions. Gilroy sees Delany as one who appropriated 18^th century philosophical notions into his ideas of racial integrity and citizenship. Delany, who compared the fate of blacks with that of the Jews and their ambitions with those of Zionism, dreamt of a black national state. 

Gilroy's "black Atlantic" is found in Delany's vision of the alliance between English capital, black American intellect and African labor power. Gilroy also finds in Delany's writings evidence of "the inner dialectics of diaspora identification", with Delany finding out during his visit to Africa that he is as much, maybe even more, African-American than he is purely African, and as Gilroy notes: "the ancient, ancestral home would simply not do as it was". As much as Delany wanted to elevate Africans, he also wanted to enlighten and modernize them. Delany's reference to Africa as the "fatherland" indicates his tying together of nationality and masculinity.

Black Politics and Modernity

If we consider black movements is the past two centuries as political opposition movements, Gilroy's question is what exactly are they opposing?  This while taking into account Du Bois's double consciousness of being both inside and outside the western world? Gilroy relies on Delany to illustrate how the intellectual heritage of Euro-American blacks effected the conceptualization of nationality within the black discourse. Gilroy distinguishes two perspectives towards this issue, the essentialist and the pluralist, though he argues that both are variants of essentialism, one being ontological and the other strategic essentialism. The essentialist, or ontological, point of view is a frustrated one in face of the cultural "contamination" of the black diaspora so widely immersed in the west. The pluralistic approach sees blackness as an open signifier and related to its inner divisions like class, gender, etc.

Gilroy looks at Hip-Hop music as a type of fusion, not just in musical terms but also in class and politics related instances. Despite its heterogeneous origins and function,Hip-Hop, Gilroy argues, as become as symbol of racial authenticity. But like politics and thought, aesthetics also accentuates the hybridity of and fragmentation of the black subject which is now further conflictualized by questions of class and gender roles.

On the other hand, Gilroy asserts that "black musical expression has played a role in reproducing what Zygmunt Bauman has called a distinctive counterculture of modernity". The complex nature of black music offers the means to go beyond the tensions of essentialism and absolutism Vs. pluralism and constructivism. Black music, Gilroy argues, opposes the world as it is with the world as the racially subordinate would like to see it, thus denying theodicy. Gilroy notes two functions of this music, one of "fulfillment" which demands of modernity to be all that it promised to be, and the other utopian which presents alternatives for the modern vision of society.  

Paul Gilroy: "The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity"

Suggested reading:

The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity by Stuart Hall – article review and summary

In his "The local and the global: globalization and ethnicity" Stuart Hall sets out to reexamine some of the main questions regarding globalization and its cultural, ethnic and identity related contexts. As an Englishman, Hall examines globalization from the British point of view for which globalization is not a new phenomenon, however one that today bears rather different characteristics than it did in the time of the British Empire. And this is one of Stuart Hall's main points in "The local and the global: globalization and ethnicity" were he claims that the identity of Englishness was formed in the wake of England dominant position in a world that was dominated by nation-states through imperialism.  This identity, Stuart Hall claims, is an exclusivist one which stems from a certain historical moment in which British discourse saw England and the English as ruling and commanding virtually anyone who was not English. All subjects of the British Empire were placed in the position of the "other" in relation to the British eye which saw itself as central. Hall notes that the "British eye" was very good at observing everything else but failed at acknowledging the very fact that it was itself looking at something. This positioning eye positioned everything else in relation to the British, and by knowing what everything else is, it knows what it itself is not.

Hall finds the British identity to be a masculine one. Being English means being an Englishman. In addition, it is quite the demanding task nowadays to convince the British that they are "just" another ethnicity with its own indigenous characteristics, like any other ethnicity. The British ideology is presenting itself as natural, unified and static. Identity, however, is neither one of these and is in constant need of a contradiction in order to stabilize itself.

    

However, in the current age of globalization British identity is challenged by a number of factors and processes. First the demise of England's economic stance that went from being the first industrialized country to being one of many and not the first among those many. The 70's economic crisis opened the global markets to new game rules of capital and technology. The new relations of production in the age of globalization links developed countries with developing ones and transforms relationship structures between different countries and societies. A second consequential factor which fragments the traditional British identity is the massive work immigration into England. Englishness has been decentralized both by the flow of capital outwards and the flow and work immigrants inwards, the result of England's long rule over third-world countries. An additional attribute of present day globalization is the growing international inter-dependency, for example by the growing constraints of supra-national organization and the loss of complete local autonomy. The final factor Stuart Hall mentions in this respect is that of environmental global effects which threaten England, like all other countries, without the possibility of effecting or stopping them. So the British national identity is growingly being eroded.

   

But the decline of the nation-state does not mean its disappearance, for Hall argues that the crisis of globalization has led her to be more exclusivist and to seek new and narrower definitions of Brutishness (i.e. Thatcherism) which will determine who is "a part of us", thus leaving a great many people and identities outside. That is to say, the decline of the nation-state in the age of globalization has led to a more radical and aggressive form a racism which attempts at isolating elements of the "authentic" culture from elements which "don’t belong".

    

The response to decline of the nation-state under globalization goes according to Stuart Hall in two directions, over and under and nation-state, to the global and local. These responses are the result of the nature of globalization which is characterized according to Hall by a "global mass culture" that includes the continuation of western English speaking cultural media products, but now it is no longer the Queen's English but rather English is a variety of tongues. A second effect of this global mass culture that Hall notes is the cultural homogenization it introduces. Contrary to what is widely thought of globalization, it does not shape the world in the image of England or the United-States, but is forging it together from the outlook of the English speaking west. The western hegemony is not trying nor succeeding in eliminating other cultures, but rather to operate on them parallel to their own unique characteristics. The logic of capitalism is not unified and does not transform more and more regions into its counterparts, but is working within the compass of other forces. The world under globalization, in other words, is not so much unified as much as it is decentralized.  

Stuart Hall mentions two manners of coping with globalization on the local level: a return to nationalism and an attempt to contain variation. One of the most important characteristics of the present age is the acknowledgment of the marginal in the central cultures, and marginality which has paradoxically turned into a center of power which tells its stories from the bottom-up, not top-to-bottom. Simultaneously we see a reaction to globalization in the form of returning to the local, community and neighborhood which remain as a concrete place when everything else is turning more and obscure. The strive for such a basic identity is what Stuart Hall terms "New Ethnicity" which can be in itself a type of fundamentalist mini-nationality. And like the unconscious perspective of the old Englishness, so does the new ethnicity strive to position and establish the world surrounding it and everything which is different.     

See also: Gayatri  Spivak on Globalization and the Politics of Representation

Stuart Hall’s “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

What is cultural studies anyway by Richard Johnson – article review and summary

In his 1986\7 article "What is Cultural Studies Anyway?" Richard Johnson tries to address his title question in a sort of a mix between a descriptive and normative strategy. At the beginning of his article it seems Richard Johnson is equating the question "what is cultural studies anyway?" with the question of "should cultural studies aspire to be an academic discipline?". This question is important because Cultural Studies reject, in a sense, any attempt to codify its methodology for its "mix and match" inclinations and interdisciplinary traditions. Richard Johnson stresses criticism as an attitude essential for cultural studies as something that evades methodological codification. Johnson reminds us that cultural studies in many ways were born when literary criticism turned its attention to virtually any human product which bears meaning, that is the historical extension of the denotation of "text".

Richard Johnson shows how developments in cultural studies coincide with similar trends in history which began to show interest in mass culture. Marxism, obviously, is mentioned as claiming fatherhood of cultural studies, though if anything this discipline is founded on harsh criticism towards old fashioned "red" thinking, with the formerly hailed Stalin now taking all the heat. And on the corpses that ran through the Gulags there arisen a new strand of neo-marxism in the 70's. in short, cultural studies were in a sense formed when Althusser and Gramsci were translated into English.

Therefore, Richard Johnson proceeds to ask about the inheritance of cultural studies from Marxism and he suggests a triad of premises. Cultural studies' first inheritance from Marxism is the notion the "cultural processes are intimately connected with social relations" (p.39). The second premise suggested by Johnson is that "culture involves power and helps to produce assymmetries in the abilities of individuals and social groups to define and realise their needs" (ibid). the third is that "culture is neither an autonomous nor an externally determined field, but a site of social differences and struggles" (ibid). Another Marxist contribution to Cultural Studies, Johnson notes, is the work of The Communist Party Historians which saw everyday common life as their object of interest.    

Richard Johnson also traces other influences that contributed to the rise of Cultural Studies that converged at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural studies (CCCS) such as the literary criticism of F.R.Leavis that first related the conventionalist nature of "High" culture and his successors, Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart which have shifted the discussion of art-society relations to "lower" culture with which Cultural Studies have been preoccupied ever since. 

"Production" is of course to a key concept in Cultural studies and Richard Johnson's attempt to address to question of "what is cultural studies anyway?". For him, what is unique for Cultural Studies and Birmingham school (CCCS) is the treatment of production in the wake and context of larger social. Cultural and political processes and especially the space and time of both production and consumption, with latter not necessarily determined by the former.   

Richard Johnson is not opposed to formalist textual analysis methods residues in cultural thought as some other more postmodern thinkers. Though he does claim the form alone does not determine function. He notes that I understand formalism negatively, not as abstraction of forms from texts, but as the abstraction of texts from the other moments" (p. 62). The approach which Johnson terms Advanced Semiology has led to notion of narrative creating a stance or subject position towards them in the reader (narratives or images always imply or construct a position or positions from which they are to be read or viewed  (p.66)). However he argues that such subject positions are generated only be formal features (such a "readable" or "writeable" in Roland Barthes's thought) but also by the somewhat unforeseeable idiosyncratic circumstances of their consumption. He notes that "the text-as-produced is a different object from the text as read" (p.58)

What Richard Johnson seems to be after is some formation or formulation of a paradigm for Cultural studies that while guide its curse, questions and modes of answering, what is the Althusserian view might be termed "problematic", thus enabling to view at "if not as unity, at least as a whole" (p.41). he also takes notice of the field's inherit left wing politics while noting that "[cultural studies] form a part of the very circuits which it seeks to describe" (p.53).

In his final maneuver in "What is Cultural Studies Anyway" Richard Johnson sums up the three prevailing approaches for Cultural Studies: production based-studies, text-based studies and studies of lived cultures. Each of these approaches isolate a different moment in the life cycle of a cultural object, thus missing out on the big picture. Therefore Johnson sums up by saying that "It is not therefore an adequate strategy for the future just to add together the three sets of approaches, using each for its appropriate moment. This would not work without transformations of each approach" (p.73)

Johnson, Richard. 1986/7. "What is Cultural Studies Anyway?". Social Text 16: 38-80.

"Reinventing Cultural Studies: Remembering for the Best Version" by Richard Johnson – article review and summary

In his 1997 "Reinventing Cultural Studies: Remembering for the Best Version" Richard Johnson returns to his programmatic pursuit of Cultural Studies which he first started a decade before in his "What is Cultural Studies Anyway?". This time Richard Johnson is after what he calls the "best" version of Cultural Studies. While "best" might (and should) sound suspicious to the cultural studies trained ear, what Richard Johnson is going for is abandoning the view of Cultural Studies as intergraded discipline in favor of treating it as a "process" occurring in the interdisciplinary membrane and the academy's relation to politics. "reinventing Cultural Studies" for Richard Johnson is far from a one-time plea for reforming the field, it is rather a descriptive and at the same time normative insight at how the field of Cultural Studies should and is conducting itself constantly.

Johnson is equating "reinventing" with "remembering". And while nostalgia is without a doubt a theme in "Reinventing Cultural Studies", Richard Johnson also has some currently relevant questions about his beloved field, which is not a field at all, so he argues. Instead Johnson takes a view on Cultural Studies as being "marginal" in the academic sphere. This is for a few reasons, starting with Cultural Studies' origins outside the academy in working-class adult education. In other words, the cultural formations which interest Cultural Studies and also present in its identity as an academic movement (with working-class, women, black and gay reaserchers). Another thing that contributes to Cultural Studies' troubled relationship with the academy (and with itself as an academic venture) is its age old suspicion of any "academic knowledge". Another part of Cultural Studies' identity that Richard Johnson mentions is its affiliation with student movements in the 70's. 

This means that political activism has always been an inseparable part of Cultural Studies. The legacy of 1968 has left its mark on Cultural Studies for decades to come, and this is something that for Johnson sets it apart of the academic world which for the most part sought to dull these effects. One major characteristic of Cultural Studies that Johnson mentions in this context is the highly democratic fashion in which Cultural Studies departments, especially CCCS, functions. The work of research and writing subgroups free from staff agenda is for Johnson one of the key features of this democratic nature of Cultural Studies, for its decentralizing effects while still sustaining a common language. All this, Johnson argues, has been somewhat lost over the years, and this is what he wants Cultural Studies to remember in order to constantly reinvent itself.

Cultural Studies and the academia

Cultural Studies' interest with "lived" experiences of social and cultural formations which go hand in hand with transforming them is what made it possible for the CCCS to coexist with the academy which it criticized for being paternalistic, hierarchic and individualist. Still, Johnson does not fail to mention the Cultural Studies view that "academic institutions are exclusive and oppressive because they have institutionalized the agenda and preferences of particular social groups and gave them the universal or general knowledges and practices" (p.456). Here Cultural Studies is parted with the academy for its race, gender and class diversity of students and teachers, thus avoiding discriminations.  

This "general" or "universal" forms of knowledge that Cultural Studies go against are replaced with "commonsense" or "popular" takes of cultural reality. In "common" Johnson is referring to the "alternative": subcultures, women, ethnic minorities, queer etc. this approach yielded some problems for Johnson, problems he claims are characteristic for Cultural Studies, with its awareness of politics and tendency to route for the underdog turning into inner conflicts and ambivalence for "insofar as cultural studies becomes a representational space for marginalized positions, it cannot be comfortable in the academy, old or new style" (p.459).  This means that practitioners of Cultural Studies often have to compromise academic ambitions for other political agendas and goals. On the larger scale, Cultural Studies have to reconcile their often subversive tendencies with the need for acceptability, respect and most importantly funding.   

Cultural Studies and politics

So what comes first for Cultural Studies? Is scholarship more important that politics? Or is it the other way around? This is one of the main questions facing Cultural Studies, manifested in the tension between theory and practice. Richard Johnson's answer is that the academic world is in itself a site of political struggle, thus qualifying Cultural Studies with both its contradicting natures. For him denying the power of academic politics is in fact succumbing to it. However the academic pressure for isolating scholar work from other occupations, especially political one, is something Cultural Studies obviously can't live with and must struggle against. So Cultural Studies faces a double front – one within the academic world and one in its ties with "actual" political battles.

The social/textual split

Cultural Studies were never too fond of boundaries, not ones between disciplines or between academy and other political sites.  With Cultural Studies situated somewhere between the humanities and social sciences the "textualization" of culture becomes a problem. A tension between the literary and sociological paradigm is what Johnson sees as the manifestation of this problem. These paradigmatic differences are related by Johnson to "different moments in the circuit of cultural production and consumption" (p.463). It seems two traditions are converged in Cultural Studies, that of the formalist structural/poststructural "textual" type and that of the more socially inclined legacy of Marxism.

Johnson describes the transformation of text from an end of analysis to a means for engagement with larger historical cultural formations. But the textual realm is not sufficient and very much limited if other "sites", such as economy for example, are not taken into account. However, when an expansionist view is taking to the question of what is "text" for Cultural Studies and the Derrida notion of "there exists nothing outside the text" is adopted, things begin to be more closely fitting to Cultural Studies' agenda. Language, consequently, is not just words, written or spoken, it is also visual representations that are treated as text, behavior, taste, design and virtually everything human can be "read" with the aid of linguistic terminology such as "discourse".

Richard Johnson addresses the eclectic methodological tradition of Cultural Studies by simply stating that "there is no available mapping of methods in Cultural Studies – virtually no methodology in that sense" (p.467). This leads to Cultural Studies' ability to transgress traditional discipline boundaries and also turn its critical attention to disciplines themselves while not having to adhere to methodology determined truth claims. Therefore Cultural Studies is often satisfied with discussion arousing criticism, not claims of truth of concrete knowledge. On the other hand, Johnson makes sure to note the dangers of not only amateurism but also old-school amateurism with a favorable social stance. In addition, Johnson takes special consideration to structure following the tradition of Gramsci and Foucault, with "structure" often translated into "relations of force". The multi- or parallel-structuring of societies allows for the creation of "condensed" cultural objects which bear meaning that relates to numerous cultural phenomena that can be analyzed through it. Johnson sums up by stating that "the familiar issues of "representativeness", "reliability" and "validity" do not altogether disappear here, but they certainly have to be reformulated" (p.469).

Limits of the textual turn

Johnson, however, is not completely at ease with the textual turn in Cultural Studies. One reason for this concern it that although everything is text, what is usually being read in Cultural Studies research is in written form and oftentimes the cannon, thus recycling dominant forms. This leads to what Johnson terms the "positionalities" of Cultural Studies researchers which determine the type of works they produce. These positionalities might tend to reconfirm or universalize certain points of view and theoretical frameworks.  

Another problem with textuality that Johnson mentions is that of political agency, and the difficulties of accounting for it in structural and poststructural theories. In the relation between means of production and conditions of production, Cultural Studies are having a hard time in accounting for the actual act and actor of producing without moving away from the literary frameworks and towards more materialistic approaches.

Johnson states that Cultural Studies should not aim at overtaking the whole academic field by bringing down disciplinary boarders, it should, however, exist in the interdisciplinary membrane and "occupy thresholds" between disciplines and paradigms.

Cultural Studies' relation to other sites

Cultural Studies, as a deeply political movement, interacts with non-academic agendas by more or less importing questions and issues and exporting ways of thinking about them. Therefore Cultural Studies should not just accumulate knowledge for its own sake and interest. Johnson Believes that Cultural Studies have for the most part failed, or were insufficient in this respect of extra-academic political involvement that was fulfilled mostly with graduates that moved on to become politicians of journalists.

Johnson notes that it is hard to assess the overall impact of Cultural Studies on culture itself, but he believes that it "had more effect on popular consciousness and practice than we allow ourselves to believe" (p.475). Another question posed in this context is whether Cultural Studies are a sort of supportive by-product of political movements? For Johnson there is no simple answer, nor is there an answer to how much Cultural Studies actually benefited those that is sought to help.

In the last part of "Reinventing Cultural Studies: Remembering for the Best Version" Richard Johnson talks about his disappointment from the Cultural Studies' success in influencing popular politics, mostly notably economic policies which have not turned less capitalist over the years since the start of Cultural Studies. The struggle here is against reductionism of questions of power to economy, thus, for Johnson, "a central question for me today is how hegemonic groups and institutions in the world – mainly male and white –are sustained in the impossible belief that the policies they pursue can ever create a viable, livable social and natural world" (p. 478).  One interesting question is this respect is who should carry out the needed reforms in the political and social workings of power, and more specifically, where should Cultural Studies operate, is it in political parties and organizations, or maybe the para-political field of journalism, NGO's, education etc.?. After ruling out the academy as an end in its own rite, Johnson also refutes the need of Cultural Studies to enter the political arena of formal parties. Rather, Cultural Studies for Johnson should operate in education, social movements.

              

From Sociology to Cultural Studies: New Perspectives by Elizabeth Long

Alan Dershowitz – "Life is Not a Dramatic Narrative" – article review and summary

In his "life is Not a Dramatic Narrtive" (1996) the famous O.J.Simpson trail attorney Alan Dershowitz argues with much vigor against the call to incorporate narratological elements into the discourse of law practice and studies. Stories have a purpose and meaning, Dershowitz says, but life does not, and any attempt to view the later as subjected to the rules and workings of the former will result in the distortion of truth.

Dershowitz line of argument stems for the Chekhov canon, "if in the first chapter you say that there is a gun hung on the wall, in the second or third chapter it must without fail discharge". In reality, though, there are countless guns hung on wall and only very few of them are discharged at a victim. Life is random, and purposeless, it is only us that attempt to ascribe it with some meaning and order, and meaning and order are not an integral part of it. Thus bringing the narrative into the courtroom confuses the working of fiction with the task of finding out the truth.

Another example used by Dershowitz to tell narrative from reality is that of a dream. In a story the inclusion of an ominous dream must be prophetic, for otherwise, were it meaningless, the dream would have not been part of the narrative. In reality, though, people dream all the time, sometimes horrendous dreams, without carrying them out, which makes the dream not only redundant in the attempt to track the truth, but also dangerous.

Dershowitz also argues, following Sartre, that a story is always constructed in hindsight. Its causal principles are only possible when all elements of the narrative relate and contribute towards a already known ending. Reality is chaotic, and endless facts scamper and skirmish about it with no teleology in mind.

Dreshowitz perceives narrative as something which distorts reality rather than mediate it. He is a positivist, believing that actual objective reality is available to our grasp if we only utilize the right methods, which are predominantly aimed at dismissing with deceiving elements, such as narrative. 

Richard Delgado – "Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative" – article review and summary

In his 1989 subversive article "Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative" Richard Delgado holds that a story is not always just a story, but rather a function which creates order and coherency and which manifests a certain meaning, thus being a shared reality experience of a group, and in fact forming that group. The linkage between narrative and group identity, especially out-groups, turns for Delgado the field of social politics into an arena of competing stories, different accounts of the same reality. A story, the argument goes, has a sort of double function. On the one hand Delgado argues that oppression is not just a statutory or social matter, but rather something that has to do with mindset and a a perception which are manifested in narratives, meta- and sub-, designed to justify in the eyes of the ruling class and group the situation as it is, a narrative that they impose and coerce on other groups in order to fend off any attempts for change. On the other hand stories can subvert dominant narratives and be a means of deconstructing ruling mindsets. In other words, stories create a shred reality and agreement, and so do counter-stories that serve as cohesion for out groups.   

In "Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative" Richard Delgado uses five stories which relate to the same event in which a black professor is denied a teaching position in a white-dominated faculty. It is clear for Delgado that the same object can be described in different way, but for him the same goes for the co-structuring of different objects and the perception of events' meaning. Accordingly, moral judgments are found in a state of constant under-determination in relation to reality. Telling reality is in fact creating it, and Delgado argues that "we decide what is, and, almost simultaneously, what ought to be." (p.292).

  Delgado analyses how stories pick and choose facts in order to depict a clear image of a otherwise ambiguous course of events. Stories are not only manifested by the things they note and the questions they answer, but also by what is left out and the questions that are not asked. Delgado shows how the story of the in-groups (the white professor) is designed to quell criticism and reassure that everything is the way it ought to be. On the other hand a report of the same story, as it were, by a different party (the black candidate) can offer a completely different account which destabilizes the agreed upon narrative and reveals its problems through different details, emphasis and organization that turn against the standard narrative's guiding logic. The court's narrative, on the other hand, uses a factual screen to determine which details will make its narrative and codes them into law lingo the works to disarm them. Delgado's fourth story in "an authentic counterstory" by a radical student which confronts the system directly and bluntly, this in turn allowing for the accused to fend off and cancel the content of the story on account of its form and context. Where the direct assault failed an anonymous leaflet narrating and pseudo-imaginary story invites postponement of judgment and cooperation with it, thus managing to infiltrate and subvert the ruling narrative.

So Richard Delgado argues that stories can be means in the hands of out-groups to challenge the mindset which is the source of their oppression. Delgado explains the all might benefit from giving voice to such narratives: the oppressed by asserting their reality and oppressors by meeting these challenges and developing towards a shared narrative. 

Peter Brooks – "Policing Stories" – article review and summary

Peter Brooks's classic article "Policing Stories" relates to the ongoing debate regarding the role of narrative in the judicial system and law theory. Brook's ground claim is that narrative function, in the court and in general, as a Kantian category of sorts which determines our grasp of a certain array of phenomenon and constructing it into a coherent understating, a function which naturally hold much weight in the courtroom. Based on this understanding of the role and function of narrative Brooks argues that there exists a repressed connection between law and narrative. Brooks engages with the exemplary question of whether details of a prior conviction should be presented when deliberating a similar yet separate offence performed by the same person, and he notes that the prevailing approach in law is to relate only to those details which are able to establish a logical syllogism between fact and rolling. Thus Brooks in fact demonstrates how courts do actually acknowledge to potency of narrative and its potential effect, but strive to reduce this capacity by "policing" stories through evidence law which limit the narrative into a shape that is agreeable by the court. Brooks holds that the attempt to limit narrative in judicial practice in fact reveals the law systems realization of the power of a story, and the attempt to deny it by adhering strictly to empirical evidence and sound logical conclusions. 

Peter Brooks argues that the court establishes the story with the compass of its own rules and conventions which are governed by its world view. The choice of details which make the narrative, what's included and what's left out, is what determines the choice between competing narratives.  

One of the notable case studies presented in Brooks's "Policing Stories" is a trail held following a woman's rape complaint. 4 versions of the event were presented (the woman, the assailant, the first appeal and second appeal). The facts of the matter under discussion were agreed upon, yet they served as basis for 4 completely different stories. Using this example Brooks argues that narrative does not consists only of facts but of the way they are understood together and establish evident meaning. This way, Brooks hold, depends on the judge's perception of reality which he refers to, following Roland Barthes, ad "doxa" (greek: conjecture).   Thus accounts of events delivered in court are not and cannot be strictly factual, despite the attempt to police them, and they articulate perceptions and values which latently guide all those practicing law in their ruling.

Peter Brook's recommendations in light of his analysis of the function of narrative in law are first to adopt narratology theory in order to track the narrative's function in the courtroom, this acknowledging it. He further claims that the reactions of agents that rule cases could be understood through the way the actively create, or construct, the story. This leads to the recognition o f narrative's function in law in particular and the way we perceive reality in general.