Athabasca University, Athabasca - CLST 201Unit 1: Culture is Ordinary

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Unit 1: Culture is Ordinary In Unit 1 you will learn about some of the ways in which society’s definitions, and our understanding, of what constitute “culture” have changed over time. Site: F ... aculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Course: CLST 201: Cultural Studies and Everyday Life (Rev. C2) Book: Unit 1: Culture is Ordinary Printed by: Philip Azubuike Date: Thursday, 12 September 2019, 7:21 AM MDTTable of contents Overview Objectives Reading Assignment The Meanings of Culture From the Study of Culture to Cultural Studies Cultural Studies is “Ordinary”? References and Supplementary MaterialsStudy Guide Unit 1: Culture is Ordinary Overview In Unit 1 you will learn about some of the ways in which society’s definitions, and our understanding, of what constitutes “culture” have changed over time. But first, an introduction to the some of the key themes of Cultural Studies and Everyday Life. Themes to be Explored Chinese bride in Suzhou, China wearing a red wedding dress, the colour of good luck and happiness, April 2009. Photograph by Pvt Pauline, Wikimedia Commons. The Study Guide you are now reading represents a somewhat arbitrary attempt to delineate, or “map out,” the domains of everyday lived culture in six units. You will find, however, that the boundaries between domains may b and there are occasional areas of overlap. For example, domestic space is now also mediated space, given the presence in the home—no longer just of radio and television—but of computers and multiple forms of social networking and communication using the internet. Given that this is the case, it may be helpful to keep the followin four themes in mind as you work your way through the readings and commentaries in this and every unit of the course. 1. Roles and rituals of Everyday Life: Much of what we do in everyday life we do on “auto-pilot” either due to habit, custom, or a half-conscious awareness of the unspoken expectations of others. According to the author one of the texts used in this course, David Inglis, “we need routines and habits in order for us to function . . . everything in the world about us kept coming as a surprise to us, as novel and unprecedented . . . we would be totally dazed and confused” (11). Yet these roles and rituals, while powerful determinants of cultural behaviours, are not fixed for all time nor are they the same in all contexts. Shirley Fedorak provides an examp from another of your course texts:Many Chinese brides now wear Western white wedding dresses; indeed an entire industry has developed arou the desire of young Chinese brides to appear more Westernized. At the same time, these brides also wear the traditional red dress at some point in the celebration, thereby combining tradition with Western influence. (11 2. Ordinary Embodiments: As Eagleton points out, one of our earliest understandings of the term “culture” deriv from the need to contrast the processes and products of human activity (whether art or agriculture) from even and objects spontaneously occurring in the natural world. But the distinctions between culture and nature are not as obvious as they may, at first glance, seem. In the first chapter of Culture and Everyday Life, Inglis explores this dichotomy, which (as Raymond Williams would have insisted) is also a relationship, as it plays out on our physical selves (our bodies) and shows how such things as gender, ethnicity and class “embody” u in ways that are cultural rather than natural. 3. Locating the Ordinary: It seems to be stating the obvious to point out that the affairs of our daily lives are not conducted in a vacuum, yet how often do we really think about how spaces and places inform the various activities that take place within them? In The Nationwide Audience, a seminal study of television-watching written from a cultural studies perspective, Morley and Brunsdon observed that changes in the viewing conte could lead members of a given social group to interpret the same program differently. Furthermore, I think m of us would agree that listening to music at a live concert is quite a different experience from playing a CD (o podcast) while driving (or riding) to work. 4. Why Understanding Everyday Cultures is Important: It has become a truism to observe that we are “born into culture, but nonetheless we are. In our family lives, our workplaces, and our communities, we are constantly subjected to cultural influences many of which are quite powerful, that work to shape our identities and so determine who we are. Yet, at the same time, we participate in the making and remaking of culture, or to put another way, we have agency. How well we understand the cultural forces that affect us has implications for how much, and in what ways, we exercise this agency.Study Guide Unit 1: Culture is Ordinary Objectives After completing Unit 1, you should be able to achieve the following learning objectives. 1. Define the terms “culture” and “popular” and trace their origins. 2. Explain why the cultures of everyday life are worthy of study. 3. Outline what the four themes given in Unit 1 mean to you.Study Guide Unit 1: Culture is Ordinary Reading Assignment Chapters 1 and 2 in Pop Culture: The Culture of Everyday Life, by Shirley Fedorak. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. “Introduction” and Chapter 1 in Culture and Everyday Life, by David Inglis. New York: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 1 in Reading the Everyday, by Joe Moran. New York: Routledge, 2005. “Popular” and “Culture” entries in Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, by Raymond Williams. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Note: If you have difficulty accessing a reading resource from this Study Guide, please send an email to the Course Coordinator identifying which one. Thought Questions 1. What do you make of Moran’s claim that buses have “low cultural status because they are disproportionately used by women, children, students, the elderly and the poor” (3)? 2. Do you agree that in recent years the boundaries between the political and non-political “are consolidated in t increasingly significant intersection between media representation and political discourse, where the policy decisions that affect people’s everyday lives are represented, caricatured, or evaded” [Show More]

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