> Popular culture should be seriously analyzed and, when appropriate,
> left-wing strains of it should be defended, developed, propagated,
> etc. -- _when and where popular culture -- culture of, by, and for
> the popular masses such as artisans, workers, peasants, etc. --
> actually exists_.
"Culture: is not so simple as being categorically left-wing or not. Culture is articulated in its uses as much as its forms/fields (if the two can ever be prised apart entirely).
> Our contemporary cultural studies, however, often
> use the term "popular culture" to refer to any old mass marketed
> commodities, in effect becoming sophisticated adjuncts for public
> relations departments of corporations.
Sure, there are very uninteresting instances and even versions of cultural studies which imagine that popular culture is the only thing cultural studies thinks about. TO the best of my knowledge this is never confined entirely to mass culture. Although there are also very uninteresting versions of pretty much every discipline, field, forum, school, I can think of, an attachment to popular culture, and specifically pop culture consumption, is a risk for cultural studies, because it's so easy to get sucked into a kind of academic marketing niche that way, at the level of both teaching and research it can look like an accessible and not too challenging version of academic work, and nothing more. It's a problem, and one which is more of a problem in specific times and locations, but to recognise that is not to dismiss either cultural studies or the analysis of popular or mass culture more generally.
> I don't see any point in
> adding to the latter, except maybe as a job or a hobby.
what's so insignificant about jobs and hobbies?
>.... I'm interested in returning the now sadly obsolete meanings of the
> term "popular" in English to "popular culture." "Popular was
> originally a legal and political term, from _popularis_, L --
> belonging to the people. An action popular, from C15, was a legal
> suit which it was open to anyone to begin. Popular estate and
> popular government, from C16, referred to a political system
> constituted or carried on by the whole people, but there was also the
> sense (cf. COMMON) of 'low' or 'base' (Raymond Williams, _Keywords_,
> <http://pubpages.unh.edu/~dml3/880williams.htm>). Culture made in
> the interest or -- better yet -- _process_ of exercise of popular
> sovereignty and popular democracy would be worthwhile.
You know, I don't know if it's my problem entirely that your quoting this to me -- given that I had referred you to Williams myself and that this is only one and not his most sophisticated or persuasive account of the complexity of thinking about "Culture" -- really irritates me. Let's say it's my problem. "Culture" is a range of fields and forms and practices which not only pervasive but powerful influence on people's lives but *are* people's lives. Was it Carrol, recently, who asked what was up with talking about culture as if it was only entertainment forms? It's this space, for god's sake, it's the meetings and groups you advocate, it's the classes, lectures and ideas you love or hate, the coffee you do or do not drink, the gymnasium you do or do not use, your clothes, hair, ways of holding a birthday party, the way you manage office hours, and so on.
Catherine
------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP at ArtsIT: http://admin.arts.usyd.edu.au/horde/imp/