Buzzword

I realize that I've been using the term "cultural studies" a shit-ton here (it is one of my majors, after all) but have never properly described it. THAT HAS TOTALLY BEEN ON PURPOSE. I've been scared to even take an attempt at defining it. And here's why.

Cultural Studies is a field of study that evolved sometime after the Industrial Revolution. Some place its birth at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. (remember when I said my interests come full circle? This is the sort of shit I mean. It's the bloody Brits again! :D) Others place it more with Marx. Others go all the way back to Georg Fredrick Hegel. Get to know Hegel's name very well - you may never have heard of him, but he basically created the way we think about history.

Point is, it had a lot to do with the French Revolution, the change in commerce following industrialization and the development of metropolitan life. It's pretty Marxist, so my conservative upbringing is often under my own scrutiny in this class (not to say I am or am not Marxist... my actually political opinions are WAY too complicated to bring up right now). It's also undefinable - really every theorist kind of has his or her own personal take on what makes up culture and what doesn't. Simmel sees culture as turning something that was natural into something labeled by humans, and thus not natural, a sort of process, if you will. There's a lot of stuff about process. Raymond Williams, on the other hand, gives an even vaguer idea of culture, again about process, but this from a historical perspective, as how the idea of culture has changed over time to become what it means now.

This is not a simple thing to study.


However, this isn't the struggle for me. I'm taking an Origins of Cultural Studies class (the only reason I'm now able to even to BEGIN to define what Cultural Studies is, actually) and the ideas behind the field are ones that I've encountered before - either in other classes or in my own pondering. I knew it was different from psychology, sociology, anthropology, literature and other humanity studies but I never quite knew how (it's the process thing again, cultural studies is more interested in how things become what they are than ending with just what they are. Also, it's very anti-disciplinary. Meaning it doesn't really like the idea of separating literature and psychology and anthropology all into little boxes).

The thing that actually bothers me is trying to reconcile that this is an imperfect science. I knew that going in, of course - nothing ever has perfect answers; it isn't the way of the world to know everything. As an author we're reading, Francis Mulhern, says, "Memory is a construction of the past." This is, of course, true - memory only arrives after an event, a product of our brain figuring things out. Construct, however, rings with the overtones of unnatural. Which reads fake. Which makes people think reality isn't real and then they have an existential break down.

Which is why the first thing they teach in Cultural Studies 1001 is that CONSTRUCT DOES NOT MEAN FAKE. It just means humans made it. A bridge is a construct. The theory of gravity is a construct. The way we see ourselves is a construct. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

However, every once in a while, you get an author that doesn't seem to be all that clear on the issue. Especially when it comes to things that people do. It's so easy to theorize that people are all thoughtless automatons that just follow styles and fashion because they like it. It makes me worry that I don't actually like things because I like them, I like them because they make me look better or because it's beneficial for me to like them.

Except that this isn't true. I've never gotten any direct rewards for being a fan of Jane Eyre,  I don't have better social standing because I've read Emily Dickinson. But are the rewards and results of social standing actually what gives me access to them?

See how muddled this gets?

What also gets difficult is the amount of theory that one reads in the major. I mean, yeah, in psychology, we're constantly dealing with theory - but that's a discussion for another post. In Cultural Studies, it's a sort of theory that you can't prove (whether you can actually "prove" anything in science is a debate I'll leave to the academics - though I'll say the more my interest in Cultural Studies grows, the more my hope for Psychology grows along with it). The theory in Cultural Studies is so... so broad, so overwhelming, that sometimes it feels like it's impossible to ever really understand the world, and that it's better to just deal with theory instead of trying to face whatever is really out there.

This, of course, is incredibly dangerous.

I don't want to get sucked into this nebulous black hole of theory. THERE IS A REAL WORLD OUT THERE, AS REAL AS IT POSSIBLY CAN ME FROM MY PERCEPTION AND I WANT TO BE A PART OF IT. I feel like Quasimodo from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame saying that (hey, theorists, don't judge me for going back to a mass culture reference. I grew up with Disney - whatever your criticisms of this film genre might be, I fucking love this movie. So back off and let me enjoy it for five seconds, okay?)

Okay, wow... I just watched that video and realized how much it really pertains to what I'm talking about. Let's work this metaphor for a second: Academia is a sanctuary, a place where I can feel safe. But I'm beginning to grow away from it, to feel the need to go out there and do my own thing, learn from my own experiences, form more of my own opinions. I want to make mistakes.

I'm only a junior and already feeling like a senior. This could be a problem. But we'll see where that takes us...