Mikhail Bakhtin: "Carnival and Carnivalesque" – summary and review - part 3

Mikhail Bakhtin - "Carnival and Carnivalesque" - summary and review

part 1 - 2 - 3

In "Carnival and Carnivalesque," Mikhail Bakhtin describes how the popular carnival life began to disappear from the 17th century onwards. The carnival lost its central role in people's lives, its forms deteriorated, and it lost its authentic meaning as a communal performance in the public square. However, Bakhtin argues that certain aspects of the carnival persisted and were preserved in modern forms of theatrical and other spectacular performances.

Bakhtin suggests that the carnivalesque sense of the world influenced language and literature, shaping their modern forms. The carnivalesque form was expressed through a language of artistic imagery that retained the sensory nature of the carnival. For instance, Bakhtin explains how the carnival's familiarity transformed into certain types of prose, reflected in plot structures, situations, narration styles, and language. During the Renaissance, the carnivalesque worldview and its elements of laughter, symbolic acts of coronation and deposition, change, and ambivalent customs infiltrated and transformed almost all genres of artistic literature. However, as the carnival declined in the 17th century, its direct influence on literature diminished, and carnivalization and carnivalesque traditions remained primarily as literary traditions.

Although the carnival as a specific cultural form no longer exists in modern times, Bakhtin argues that its legacy, traditions, and functions continue to live on. Cultural researchers, like John Fiske in "Understanding Popular Culture," have suggested that certain contemporary cultural forms, such as TV game-shows, retain the nature and function of the medieval carnival as described by Mikhail Bakhtin.

Mikhail Bakhtin - "Carnival and Carnivalesque" - summary and review

part 1 - 2 - 3 

Mikhail Bakhtin: "Carnival and Carnivalesque" – summary and review - part 2

Mikhail Bakhtin - "Carnival and Carnivalesque" - summary and review

part 1 - 2 - 3

According to Mikhail Bakhtin in "Carnival and Carnivalesque", the central ritualistic act of the carnival is the false coronation and deposition of the carnival king. In the carnival, the complete opposite of the king – the clown or the slave – is crowned with all the colors of the ritual, only to be shamefully deposed later. This marks the beginning of the carnival and the creation of its reversed world. Bakhtin believes that the essence of the carnival lies in this act – the pathos of change and renewal, of death and rebirth. The carnival, for Bakhtin, is a celebration of time that destroys and renews everything. The coronation and deposition are a dualistic and ambivalent ritual that expresses the relativity of structure and order, as well as the contingency of authority and hierarchical positions.

Bakhtin argues that carnivalesque imagery is always characterized by duality and ambiguity. The carnival brings together opposing forces such as change and crisis, birth and death, old and young, high and low, wisdom and stupidity, and more. This dualistic imagery is a defining feature of the carnival due to its contradictory nature. During the carnival, things are turned upside down: clothes are worn in reverse, household items are used as weapons, and the clown becomes the king.

One of Bakhtin's central arguments in "Carnival and Carnivalesque" is that medieval people lived a double life. On one hand, there was the normal, official, serious, and gloomy everyday life, which was governed by strict hierarchical order and filled with fear and dogmatism. On the other hand, there was the carnivalesque life, which was free and unrestricted, characterized by ambivalent laughter, sacrilege, the defilement of sacred things, humiliations, and familiar interactions with everyone and everything. Both forms of life were legitimate, but they were separated by clear temporal boundaries. According to Bakhtin, understanding this duality is key to understanding the cultural consciousness of medieval society.

Mikhail Bakhtin - "Carnival and Carnivalesque" - summary and review

part 1 - 2 - 3

Mikhail Bakhtin: "Carnival and Carnivalesque" – summary and review

Mikhail Bakhtin - "Carnival and Carnivalesque" - summary and review

part 1 - 2 - 3

Mikhail Bakhtin's famous work, "Carnival and Carnivalesque," explores the significance of the carnival as a central form of celebration throughout European history. According to Bakhtin, the carnival is not merely a performance but an event where the boundaries between spectators and performers dissolve. Everyone who participates in the carnival "lives it," creating a world turned upside down, distinct from everyday life.

Bakhtin identifies four key aspects of the carnivalistic sense of the world. Firstly, it allows for free and familiar interactions between people who are typically separated. Secondly, eccentric behavior, which would usually be deemed unacceptable, becomes legitimate, revealing hidden aspects of human nature. Thirdly, the carnivalistic misalliances enable connections between elements that are usually kept apart, such as the sacred and the profane, the old and the new, or the high and the low. Lastly, the carnival is a site of sacrilege, where blasphemy, profanity, and parodies of sacred things take place. For Bakhtin, these categories represent not abstract notions of freedom and equality, but rather a lived experience of the world, manifested through sensory ritualistic acts that blend seamlessly with life itself.

Bakhtin notes that while the carnival was confined to a specific time, it extended beyond physical boundaries and permeated even private spaces, including houses. However, the town square and its adjacent streets were the central locations of the carnival, symbolizing its universality and accessibility to all people.

Mikhail Bakhtin - "Carnival and Carnivalesque" - summary and review

part 1 - 2 - 3

See also: The Meaning of Bakhtin's Dialogism in Literature

Fredric Jameson: "Reification and Utopia" – summary and review

Fredric Jameson's "Reification and Utopia" (1979) starts with a summary and debate of the traditional critical attitudes towards the social functions of art in general and popular culture in particular. The central line of Jameson's review is the notion of the commodification of culture and art and the reification of human experiences which are turned into consumer products. Reification according to Jameson means that human experiences and practices are transformed into consumable objects that can be measured in light of their function and end, and of course money. By this perspective in was customary, in the Marxist tradition, to view popular culture as art which has turned into a consumer product with high-art being the antithetical autonomous aesthetic form.

But Jameson doesn't subscribe to the traditional Marxist notions about high and popular culture. He offers a view of modern cultural production is being structured in an historical context through the dialectical opposition of high and popular, with the products of both being reactions the works of late capitalism. By refusing to be popular, modern art is in fact always relating to popular culture, and therefore the two are dialectically interrelated. Here Jameson offers a groundbreaking approach in the study of popular culture that will be later further developed in his "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism".

In the second part of "Reification and Utopia" Jameson analyses three popular films: Jaws and the first two parts of The Godfather. His analysis points to the social, political and ideological meanings inscribed in what is normally viewed as popular senseless entertainment. Jaws and The Godfather, according to Jameson, combine two types of meanings. On the one hand they confirm the existing social order while on the other hand they offer a type of utopia of returning to the old lost family values. These movies, Jameson argues, offer a way of coping and confronting historical processes in the American culture and the sense of crisis and deterioration.

Fredric Jameson's seminal work, "Reification and Utopia" (1979), commences with a broad examination and discussion of traditional attitudes towards the societal role of art, specifically focusing on popular culture. Central to Jameson's exploration is the concept of commodification, where culture, art, and human experiences are transformed into consumable goods. Reification, in Jameson's context, refers to the conversion of human experiences and practices into tangible objects that can be evaluated based on their purpose, end result, and monetary worth. From a Marxist perspective, this is often associated with viewing popular culture as a consumer product, while high-art is seen as an autonomous aesthetic form.

However, Jameson departs from traditional Marxist interpretations of high and popular culture. He suggests that contemporary cultural production is shaped by historical context through the dialectical opposition of high and popular art forms. He argues that these products are both reactions to late capitalism. Interestingly, he posits that by resisting popularity, modern art inevitably engages with popular culture, thereby establishing a dialectical relationship between the two. This innovative approach to studying popular culture is later expanded upon in his seminal work, "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism".

In the latter half of "Reification and Utopia", Jameson scrutinizes three popular films: Jaws and the first two installments of The Godfather. His analyses uncover the social, political, and ideological implications embedded within these films, which are often dismissed as mere popular entertainment. Jameson asserts that films like Jaws and The Godfather encapsulate dual meanings. While on one hand, they affirm the existing social order, they simultaneously evoke a utopian longing for a return to traditional family values. In essence, Jameson suggests that these films provide a means of grappling with and confronting historical shifts in American culture and the ensuing sense of crisis and decline.

Theodor Adorno - culture industry reconsidered - summary

In "Culture Industry Reconsidered" Theodor Adorno discusses the Frankfurt School concept of the culture industry and its applications in media. The idea and concept of culture industry was formulated by Adorno and Max Horkheimer in their book "Dialectic of Enlightenment"

 under the chapter  "Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception".  According to Adorno media content is adapted to mass consumption. Content is presented in an ordered fashion and time table, in order to appeal to the largest portion of the public. In order to achieve its appeal, mass media combines high and low culture and mixes the boundaries between them. Masses according to Adorno are perceived by the culture industry as objects for calculation. The consumer is certain that media is adapted to his needs while in fact the culture industry produces this sentiment in order to strengthen its influence. "the voice of the master" – the rulers of the culture industry – transmits humiliating content to the public that all have to do with the ruling ideology, with little critical resistance by the masses.

According to Adorno in "Culture Industry Reconsidered" the culture industry's interest is to preserve its affinity to the narrowing cycle of capital as its source of living. For Adorno, media's influence, its lack of objectivity and monopoly should not be taken lightly. The culture industry gives the illusion of being informed and involved, while in reality the consumer of mass meida is being reduced to minding himself with his own petty matters.

According to Adorno the public refrains from criticizing the media because they are dependent upon it. They need the culture industry in order to achieve pleasure and satisfaction and cannot imaging their lives without it.

The culture industry preserves its power by presenting "the good life" as reality and through false conflicts that trade him for his real ones. The culture industry according to Adorno spreads false values and establish the individual's willingness to be a part of society and to coordinate his interests with it, as they are portrayed by the culture industry. The culture industry takes advantage of the weaker classes by making its content shallow and widely appealing and thus demoting the value of culture.

Adorno concludes "Culture Industry Reconsidered" with the assertion that the "happiness" produced for the masses by the culture industry is imaginary, it induced people to pursue unachievable dreams and represses all those that can oppose it (what Adorno calls "mass deception").

see: Adorno and Horkheimer

Adorno's Relationship with Technology

Adorno's Negative Dialectics Explained

Adorno, the Culture Industry and Art as Resistance

Laura Mulvey and the analysis of Hollywood cinema

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema is an essay on cinema written by Laura Mulvey in 1973 and published in 1975 in the British cinema review Screen. In this article Laura Mulvey incorporates the Freudian idea of phallocentrism in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. She insists on the idea that the images, characters, plots, stories and dialogues in films are built on the unconscious of patriarchal society. It also incorporates the works of thinkers like Jacques Lacan and illustrates its point with the films of directors Josef von Sternberg and Alfred Hitchcock.

According to Mulvey, viewing a film unconsciously or somewhat consciously reproduces the typical societal roles of men and women. Watching is generally seen as an active male role (male gaze) while the passive role of being examined is immediately seen as a female characteristic (female gaze). Mulvey argues that women in cinema are linked to desire and that female characters have a coded appearance to have a strong visual and erotic impact. The female actress is not intended to represent a character that directly affects the outcome of a plot, it is inserted in the film to be sexually objectified.

Mulvey calls for challenging Hollywood's patriarchal system and moving beyond voyeurism or fetish fascination. She offers a new cinematographic style establishing an alternative viewer, in a feminist vision.

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema was the subject of much debate among film theorists until the mid-1980s. In 2006, Laura Mulvey publishes Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image. In this work, she explores how video and DVD technologies have altered the relationship between film and viewer. They no longer have to watch a movie in its entirety and in a linear fashion from start to finish. Before the emergence of VHS and DVD players, viewers could not dwell on the film's precious moments, nor own the images of the idols. In response to this problem, the film industry produced still images that complemented the film itself. These images were designed to give fans of the film the illusion of possession. With digital technology, viewers can pause movies at any time, play back their favorite scenes, and even skip scenes they don't want to watch.

According to Laura Mulvey, this power led to the emergence of the “possessive spectator”. Movies can now be detached from the linear narrative into as many favorite moments or scenes. It is within this relationship that redefined Mulvey says that viewers can now engage in sexual form of possession of the bodies they see on the screen.

See also: Laura Mulvey's theory of representation

The male gaze in feminist film theory

Meaning of Subculture Explained and Defined

Definition: The term "Subculture" is used in sociology and anthropology to define a group of people with a distinctive set of behaviors and beliefs that differentiates them within the dominant culture of which they are a part.

A subculture can be formed from the age , ethnic group or gender of its members. The qualities that determine a subculture to appear can be aesthetic, political, sexual, or a combination of these.

Subcultures are often defined by their opposition to the values ​​of the dominant culture to which they belong, although this definition is not universally accepted, since an opposition between subculture and culture does not always occur in a radical way.

Features of a Subculture

A subculture is frequently associated with people of all ages and social classes who have common preferences in entertainment, in the meaning of certain symbols used and in the use of social media of communication, behavior, idiosyncrasy and language, among others not so notorious. In this sense it is also said that corporations , sects and many other groups or segments of society can be observed and studied as subcultures .

According to leading theorists who have studied subcultures, such as Dick Hebdige , members of a subculture will often signal their membership in the subculture by distinctive use of clothing and style. Therefore, the study of a subculture often consists of the study of the symbolism associated with the clothing , music and other customs of its members, and also of the ways in which these same symbols are interpreted by members of the dominant culture. . If the subculture is characterized by systematic opposition to the dominant culture, then it can be described as a counterculture.

Origin of the term "Subculture"

In 1950, the American theorist and sociologist David Riesman observed that in a majority community there was a group of people who did not follow the same life patterns. Riesman viewed this subculture as a culture with its own peculiarities within the prevailing culture.

In turn, several theorists of the twentieth century have carried out specialized studies in culture. This is the case of Dick Hebdige, social researcher, who published his book: Subculture: The Meaning of Style, in 1979 and which constitutes a valuable contribution to the cultural studies carried out at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCS) from the University of Birmingham, England, an institution where he acquired his studies in sociology. Thus, Hebdige is taken as an important reference when dealing with the subject of youth subcultures. In addition, Hebdige considers that the members of a subculture when validating their belonging to it must have certain peculiarities such as style, clothing, language and / or the way of relating,

Constacne Penley – "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" – summary – part 2

part 1 - 2

In "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" feminist thinker Constance Penley analyses "Star Trek" fanzines written by women and depicting written and visual accounts of romantic and sexual relations between Captain Kirk and Spock, written by mostly heterosexual women.

What Penley is trying to figure out in "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" is why do these "Star Trek" fans write their sexual fantasies through the bodies of two men, and why specifically Kirk and Spock.

Penley notes that although the stories depict Kirk and Spock as having sexual relations they are not portrayed as gay. Still there is the occasional tendency to "allow" the Star Trek characters to be homosexuals. For Penley this phenomenon enables the women a wider range of identification and desire – the fantasy offers them the opportunity to be either Kirk or Spock along with the possibility of having them both as the objects of their sexual desire, since heterosexual men are not unavailable to women. The binary distinction between desire and the object of desire is not organized according to Penley along gender relations.

Penley holds that the transition from psychoanalytic interpretation models based on voyeurism and fetishism in feminist cinema theory to a model based on fantasy enables an account of a wide range of identifications that transcend gender boundaries.

The fact that women can identify with men is not new. But the question that concerns Penley's "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" is why specifically these men, why Star Trek Kirk and Spock?

Penley answers this question my first noting that female characters in Star Trek were always disappointing to fans.  This disappointment is what initially led the women who write the Star Trek fanzines to "take over" the world of Star Trek and to propel it in their own desired directions: a better formula of romance and a pornography that is attractive to women. However they were able to do so only through the characters they admired, desired and could identify with. For Penley identification in fantasy is not only with the character, but can also be directed at the situation or narrative. One of the most important aspects of the fan's identification with Kirk and Spock is according to Penley the social and political values that the world of Star Trek represents.

Penley concurs with Lamb and Veith who argued that the Star trek characters of Kirk and Spock allow women to imagine a transcendental unity which is not based on gender power relations, but rather on radical equality. But this for her still does not answer the question of why Star Trek and why Kirk and Spock?

Penly notes the women's Star Trek fanzines often contain S&M scenes between Kirk and Spock. Using the ruse of science fiction the women are able integrate S&M scenes while preserving the distinction between the real and fantasy worlds. If S&M is taking place I these stories, it is taking place in some other universe that has its own rules, among mirror doubles of the heroes, with the occasional flashback that still connects the two worlds.   

Constacne Penley's "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" and her research on Star Trek women's fanzines illustrates the complexity of relations between women and popular culture. The Star Trek fans in "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" are not passive consumers of popular culture and they sustain a complex and creative relationship with it. They use popular culture as the basis for creative action.   

suggested reading:

Constacne Penley – "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" – summary and review

Constacne Penley's "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" deals with the relations between feminism, psychoanalysis and popular culture by focusing on questions regarding the production of subjectivity and identity. Penley examines these questions by observing a group of female "Star Trek" fans who produce a type of literature that builds on "Star Trek" characters in a genre that combines fiction, pornography and utopian science fiction.

At the opening of "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture" Penley criticizes the feminist tendency to almost exclusively adopt Nancy Chodorow's model of feminine subjectivity in order to describe the manner in which women consume popular culture products. This model emphasizes a regression to pre-oedipal fantasies as a specific form of feminine identification. Penley argues that this model is too narrow and offers instead a psychoanalytic model of fantasy which enables an account of how the subject shapes a "script" through which he can manage critical questions regarding desire, knowledge and identity, and in which the subject can simultaneously sustain several positions of identification.    

Penley follows French psychoanalysis Laplanche and Pontalis who explain that fantasy for the subject is a story that attempts to answer basic questions regarding the origin of the individual, sexuality, gender differences etc. fantasy for them is not the object of desire, but rather the environment which sustains them. Though the subject is always present in the fantasy, he or she can assume several positions which are not necessarily subjective. Laplanche and Pontalis add a Lacanian flavor by pointing to the lack of mutuality between subject and object or the manner in which the subjects is constructed by what is absent in him.

Penley hold that the model of fantasy presented by Freud and Lacan allows the explanation of a number of, even contradicting, subject positions as well as the relation between desire and law – the subject of the symbolic order as well as of the imaginary order. Penley holds that only a detailed account of identification and gender differences can assist in describing what happens in the writing and reading of fanzines, given the multiple options of identification a pleasure presented by them and that do not seem to originate in the pre-oedipal stage.

to part 2 of the summary

suggested reading:

Angela McRobbie – "Post Feminism and Popular Culture" – summary and review

In "Post Feminism and Popular Culture" (Feminist Media Studies 4, 2004) feminist cultural researcher Angela McRobbie argues that popular culture during the 9o's is characterized by a set back from the achievements of the feminist movement. For McRobbie, contemporary popular culture expresses what has been termed "post feminism".

When relating to post feminism in the context of popular culture McRobbie denies the view on post feminism as a conservative reaction to the achievements of feminism. For McRobbie, post feminism as it is expressed in popular culture relies on the achievements of feminism. Post feminism views these achievements as socially and culturally "obvious". This allows popular culture to portray female characters which lead an independent, equal and free lifestyle (a good recent example is of course "Sex and the City").  However, these independent women, like in Sex and the City, are not abiding according to McRobbie to the principles of feminism and they do not associate themselves with the movement and its goals, therefore not contributing to its political power. Some of these popular culture depictions of modern women use their freedom to chose in adopting female behavioral patterns which feminism tried to abolish.

The second part of Angela McRobbie's "Post Feminism and Popular Culture" uses her critical agenda in analyzing the film "The Bridget Jones Diary" in a manner that illustrates her argument that post feminism is shaping the way women are portrayed in recent popular culture.

suggested reading:

Stuart Hall: "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" –summary

The first part of Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is an historical account of the development of British popular culture in late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. This period, according to Stuart Hall, saw some deep cultural changes in urban working classes with the appearance of cultural industries products and technologies. Hall holds that this period is characterized by questions which remain relevant to this day regarding the relation between corporate produced culture and the image of popular culture as belonging to the masses.  

In the main part of "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" Hall is discussing the problematic meaning of the word "popular" in "popular culture". Hall analyzes two common understandings of this concept. The first meaning of "popular" is the one of wide circulation and commerciality. Subscribers of this view often tie popular culture with manipulative consumerism and regard it as falsification and even degradation of authentic working class cultural content and tradition. Stuart Hall only partially accepts this view for on the one hand it views working class members as easily manipulated passive consumers while on the other hand seeking an "authentic" or "original" working class culture which does not really exist. Hall prefers a more dynamic and changing description of popular content and forms.

The second definition of popular culture scrutinized by Hall is the one which views popular culture as all the cultural activities of "the people". This definition is in fact a massive inventory list of various cultural and leisure activities. Hall is critical of this perspective as well for its essentialist view and it being based on the binary distinction between "the people" and the "elite".

Towards the end of "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" Stuart Hall offers another definition of popular culture which stresses its dynamic nature and constant tension and struggle. Hall understands popular culture as an ongoing process, similar the concept of Hegemony offered by Gramsci, is which relations of control and subordination are constantly shifting and certain cultural forms gain and lose support from institutions. Preferred of marginalized cultural content and forms are not fixed, according to Hall there is a constant movement and interchange between them as a result of shifting power relations, the assimilation of poplar content into "high culture" and vice versa. What Stuart Hall is essentially offering in "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is a neo-Gramscian view of the power relation between high and popular culture, with a more mutual perspective of the assimilatory take originally offered by Gramsci who thought the high hegemonic culture assimilates and sterilizes popular culture. 

See: A review of Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular"

Stuart Hall’s “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

Stuart Hall: "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" –review

Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" initially appeared in "People's History and Socialist Theory" (1981) – a collection of essays concerned with socialism in its British contexts. Therefore Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" relies on British popular culture and its significance to the lower working class. But since Hall is attempting to deconstruct stereotypical connections between popular culture and the working class, "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" has theoretical value in relation to the understanding of popular culture as a modern phenomenon in industrialized countries.

Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" works within the tension between the perception of popular culture as something that emanates from the working class and therefore has something authentic about it, and the understanding of popular culture as an exploitative, commercial and mass communication based ally of modern capitalism. Hall's Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" criticizes views that regard popular culture as an authentic expression of the working class and as a site for cultural resistance. Hall favors a more dynamic approach which views popular culture as changing field and as a site for struggle between different social forces over the meaning and value ascribed to popular culture.

"Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" opens with an historical account of the development of British Popular culture. Stuart Hall then proceeds to discuss the meaning of the term "popular" in the phrase "popular culture". Hall is offering three different definitions of "popular" in relation to culture, and his main point in "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is to try and point to the complexity of the relation between cultural products and content associated with "the common people" and the products and content of the culture industry. Hall points to the power relation that determine both high culture and popular culture as opposed concepts, while criticizing any attempt for an essentialist view of culture in general and popular culture in particular, and any steady association of content and cultural products with a specific social class.

see: A summary of Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular"

culture industry

Stuart Hall’s “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

Richard Shusterman: "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" – summary and review

Richard Shusterman's "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" (in "pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking art" 1992) is a defense on popular culture or popular art's statutes as an aesthetic and artistic field. Philosophy of aesthetics has often refused to relate to popular culture as a form of art on account of it lacking certain aesthetic qualities. Richard Shusterman is attempting to demonstrate how these qualities do exist in popular art, and he uses the example of rap music to demonstrate his case.

Shusterman counts six common arguments against popular art:

That popular art offers no aesthetic satisfaction; that popular art does not provide as aesthetic challenge of promote an active response; that popular art is superficial and does not appeal to the intellect; that popular art is not creative and is not innovative in its forms and styles; that popular art is non-critical, conformist and formula based; and that popular art is not stylistically developed.

For every one of these arguments against the aesthetic value of popular art Shusterman is offering a counter example or claim in order to show how popular art (in his case, rap music) does have the traits that on account of their absence popular art is denied aesthetic value.

Richard Shusterman's "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" and large parts of his aesthetic philosophy thought aims to oppose the elitist take against popular art, such as Dwight Macdonald's "A theory of Mass culture" which sees popular art as a threat to the "high arts" and the public's intellect. Shusterman does not subscribe to a normative judgment of high or popular art, but rather wishes to base aesthetic judgments on art's concrete everyday function in society.

suggested reading:

Richard Shusterman."Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" .in "pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking art" 1992. Cambridge: Blackwell

Anne Allison – "The Japan Fad in Global Youth Culture and Millennial Capitalism" – summary and review

In "The Japan Fad in Global Youth Culture and Millennial Capitalism" (in: Mechademia: Emerging Worlds of Anima and Magna") Anne Allison attempts to explain the enormous popularity of Japanese cultural products among western, especially American, youth.

Allison argues that American youth feel that the translation gap between their culture and Japanese culture isn't unbridgeable and asked whether the 'j-cool" trend represents a shift is the global cultural power of the United-States.

With Japanese imports into American culture become less "odorless" or transparent and display identifiable Japanese features, Allison argues that the juxtaposition of different cultural codes is a global model which is different model of Americanization. The Japanese fad, Allison holds, is a global fantasy of mixed the known and the exotic unknown in an indefinable location. The fascination with Japanese cultural products is related to an attraction to something which is different (the fantasy of the Japanese cultural code) but at the same time real as in being from a real existing place (Japan). Fantasy and difference, otherness, are routed in a place which can be studied and visited. In other words, the attraction for Japan among American youth is a mixture of fantasy and realism which create what Roland Barthes called "a myth" – a place which is between the real and the imagined, the familiar and the strange.

For Allison the attraction towards Japanese products represents a new type of global imagination which gains hold with the decline of American "soft power". This is also the decline of a monolithic monochromatic cultural code which is being replaced by something more suitable to the contemporary mental state of "being in a world where the only sense of home is to be found in a constant state of change".

Allison argues that this new cultural code lends itself very comfortably to capitalism. Japanese cultural products supply a fantastic sphere (with erotic aspects which Allison attributes to Freud's notion of polymorphous perversity) of "perpetual transformation… that extend into cyber frontier, promises (new age) companionships and connectedness, albeit in a commodity form. This Japanese (imagined) cultural code fits in with the experience of worldwide post-industrial youth. The capitalistic dream world is a place in which progresses in always possible and pressing but final fulfillment is never possible. The nomadic situation of always being out of place, on the way to someplace else is completed with the sense of being able to continually reshape, to build polymorphic attachments in a state of constant flux that has no end other than itself.     

Richard Peterson – "Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music" – summary and review

What is interesting about Richard Peterson's "Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music" is his analysis of the production of culture and its characteristics as the background mechanism which facilitates change in popular culture.

In "Why 1955?" Peterson relies on his former model of "institutional constraints" for analyzing the production of culture in the light of institutional structures and modes of production. The institutional constraints model of the production of culture aims to demonstrate how changes in style and nature of cultural products and the emergence of innovative and groundbreaking trends can be explained through institutional constraints which influence, directly or indirectly, the production of culture.

The institutional constraints of the production of culture introduced by Peterson are: technology and technological innovations, law and regulation, career patterns, market structure, industry structure and organizational structure. The main point of the institutional constraints model is that the production of culture functions along the various workings of these "constraints" which shape to at least some extent which cultural products gain wide circulation. In "Why 1955?" Peterson uses the production of culture model to offer an explanation of why it 1955 which saw the rise of rock music in popular culture.

In explaining the advent of rock music Peterson does not resort to an attempted explanation of the meaning of the new musical style (like, for instance Dick Hebdige in "The Meaning of Style") but rather he assumes that rock music was "there" in the sense that audiences were at a certain point in cultural history in which such music could fit their needs. What Peterson is asking, as suggested by his title "Why 1955?", is what were to conditions, "institutional constraints" which allowed for the rise of tock music. Peterson shows how changes in the 50's in technology which allowed easier and wider circulation of even small firms and marginal (for the time being) artists, in legislation and regulation and the structural state of both the industry and organizations can explain the rise of rock music. 

Dwight Macdonald – "A Theory of Mass Culture" – summary and review

As a cultural critic, Dwight Macdonald combined a leftist, even radical, stance with cultural conservatism and elitism, two features of his thought which are manifested in his 1957 "A Theory of Mass Culture". in talking about a theory of mass culture Macdonald expresses his cultural conservatism in worrying about the statue and future of the accomplishments made by western culture and high art in the 20^th century. Macdonald views popular culture as a threat to high culture with its wide circulation of shallow content and widespread popularity.    

Macdonald opens his theory of mass culture by stating that he prefers mass to culture to popular culture. popular can refer to the wide spread consumption of a cultural product that can be of good quality (like Mozart of Tolstoy). Mass culture, however, is in Macdonald's eyes related to nature of culture in industrialized societies. Upholding a prominent view argued for by sociologists of his time, Macdonald sees the industrialized society as one in which traditional social structures such as the community collapsed only to be replaced by a mass society of mutually alienated individuals (Macdonald relies on Riesman's concept of "the lonely crowd".

Mass culture, for Macdonald, is the culture of mass society, which is characterized by vulgarity, kitsch, homogeneity and standardization. These attributes position mass culture in Macdonald's view in opposition to the refine nature and diversity of high culture. mass culture's massive power is threatening high culture which cannot compete with mass culture's popularity.

Macdonald's "A Theory of Mass Culture" should be read as expressing a common view of its time, the post second-war days of the cold war, the beginning of a consumer society in the USA and early television broadcasting. Subsequent cultural developments, especially during the 60's and with the rise of cultural studies weakened many of Macdonald's conservative views on mass culture.  

    

       

Eva Illouz - Oprah Winfrey - summary - 2

part 1 - 2

The self help ethos which according to Illouz in "Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery" characterizes Oprah's show has been widely adopted by women synthesizes two main contradicting cultural repertoires: freedom and self reliance and comfort and intimacy. It stresses, according to Illouz that introspection and a better understanding of the self can lead to emotional independence which in turn enables better and stronger relations.

The common argument against Oprah's instant remedies which sees it false or as a type of consumerism is rejected by Illouz. She compares Oprah's methods with ritualistic healing in traditional societies which is often a social matter and event which involves a charismatic figure, like Oprah. Oprah's healing techniques utilize her charisma and the public eye and that is the reason why people willingly subject themselves to the exposure on her show. Change is thus achieved through powerful symbolic processes mediated by the creation of an imagined community which shares the person's personal (reconstructed) narrative.

However, Oprah is different from other forms of spiritual healing in being sustained by a technological apparatus and in being a source of ever increasing capital (Illouz is probably referring here to various types of capital, not just financial). Furthermore, Oprah's influence is not limited to individuals, but also applies to organizations and institutes. She is an empire of assistance, through philanthropy and other forms of social activity which serve to emphasis her moral accountability. Illouz also notes are the various methods employed by Oprah and the various mediums of her activity (the Oprah show, O magazine, Oprah's web site…) create a hypertext of identity which is stratified by different layers of narrative to produce a thick personal story and process of positive change induced by appearing on the Oprah show. This is for Illouz what makes Oprah a sort of a postmodern program, with the decentering and fluidity of the subject.

part 1 - 2

Eva Illouz - Oprah Winfrey - summary

part 1 - 2

In the chapter titles "The Hypertext of Identity" (in "Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery") Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz contests against the notion that talk shows such as Oprah are a cynical manipulation and exploitation of human misery for the sake of profit. This perception, Illouz holds, is related to the theoretical stance which views the world in absolute terms of power (and resistance to power). For illouz this approach flattens complex situations and spheres of meaning into a single principle which tries to encompass all social phenomenons. This approach is problematic for Illouz for a number of reasons, one of them being the fact that the same analysis under this theory of power is applicable to both a summer camp and a concentration camp.

Illouz is not trying to deny power and its effects, but she does argue for a more complex attitude which does not subscribe to one single principle of hegemony and does allow for some agency.

Illouz offers an analysis of Oprah which attempts to bring into account the moral capacity of all participating agents. Following Boltanski Illouz argues that representations of misery arouse a-priori suspicion, and therefore as the gain some sort of moral credentials which will provide it with acceptability. When relating to Oprah Illouz hold that repetitive display of misery along with the use of central moral values and symbols is what allows Oprah to be beyond suspicion of a cynical exploitation of people's misfortune.

Illouz argues that Oprah has resolved to problem of being under suspicion by constructing misery in a narrative of transformation and personal change. Oprah has crossed the line from entertainment into the realm of active social, through personal, transformation.

Illouz observes how Oprah mixes New Age spirituality and popular psychology in order to introduce themes of personal change, communicative to all viewers. Oprah, for Illuoz, offers not only a specific vision of a healthy life, but also the means of achieving them. Misfortune in Oprah has one end and that is to bring about closure in the form of personal transformation. The victim is made to be a strong person who copes with his troubles and comes out triumphant.

part 1 - 2

John Street on politics and popular culture

In "Aesthetics, Policy and the Politics of Popular Culture" John Street tries to broaden the scope of discussion over the politics of popular culture in cultural studies. His aim is to examine the link between aesthetic judgment and politics which is manifested in determining state policies regarding popular culture, with the separation of high and low culture often serving as the criteria for national support.

John Street distinguishes 5 different approaches towards aesthetic judgment of popular culture: right modernism, left modernism, populist postmodernism, pragmatic postmodernism and neo-functionalism.

Right modernism is your typical conservative approach with orthodox perceptions regarding the supremacy of high culture and the view of popular culture as a threat to society.

Left modernism is also discontented with popular culture but for reasons of being a paralyzing mechanism in the service of capitalism (e.g. the Frankfurt School).

Populist postmodernism is the approach associated with some branches of cultural studies which deny the possibility of any universal or objective critetions for aesthetic judgment. Populist postmodernism holds the each consumer has his own needs and ways of interpreting cultural products.

Pragmatic postmodernism argues that aesthetic judgments about popular culture are possible and warranted, but should be made on popular culture's own terms.

Neo-functionalism is in fact Bourdieu's approach according to which aesthetic judgments are a function of a social hierarchy which aims at preserving itself.

Throughout his article Street utilizes his own criterion of judgment – the extent to which these approaches coincide with what Simon Frith (Performing Rights) had so to say. What Street (and Frith) eventually moves to demonstrate is that aesthetic judgment of popular culture is fundamentally a political activity, an extension of social power relations and their enforcement over who gets sponsored.