Theory Journals

Theory Journal Week Six
Eric Lott, “Racial Cross-Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness
A complex article to be sure but one well worth reading! What I thought was extremely compelling about Lott's piece was it's contribution to a practice of queer theory in a cultural studies framework. Applying concepts of performativity and ventriloquism, Lott maps out the psychic processes of domination through white supremacy that endcode themselves upon the bodies of African-American males through the performance of black face by white men. Lott parses through the distinctions between the social and psychic constructions of race through the material practice of minstrelsy (253). Relying on Fanon, Lott states that within the performative aspect of black face, “'White skin', [...] is here obliterated by 'black mask'” (252). In a move that resonates with Judith Butler's critique of the sex/gender distinction, Lott posits that within the interstices of race relationships based in domination and white supremacy, “whiteness itself ultimately becomes an impersonation” (254).
I must admit that my very feeble understanding of psychoanalysis (esp. Freud and to a much more intense degree, Lacan) I felt a little inept reading this article. I would like to re-read it after I have done some more in depth research into psychoanalysis. But, in any event, the oscillation between whiteness and blackness (or non-whiteness) creates discursive moments where the assumed naturalness of racial categories are placed into a critical flux.


Theory Journal Week Five
Dona Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto.”
I don't think that this article could have come at a better time in the semester. With my questions regarding blogs and technology, Haraway's article is more than germane to this inquiry. I have read this piece several times throughout my academic career and upon each re-reading I see something new. Truly, it is one of those germinal pieces that changes shape and color not unlike the turn of a kaleidescope.
What I focused upon with this re-reading was 1) how does this piece fit within a cultural studies model of analysis and 2) how can this further my own research interests. As far as cultural studies is concerned, I think that one of the major claims in the text is the negotiation and re-negotiation of subjectivity within a technological age. As her title suggests, Haraway envisions this negotiation to take place within a cyborg space.
[A] cyborg world might be about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints. The political struggle is to see from both perspectives at once because each reveals both dominations and possibilities unimaginable from the other vantage point. Single vision produces worse illusions that double vision or many-headed monsters. (276)
This fractured identity is part and parcel to reconceptualizing politics and political identity formations within cultural discourse. Haraway sees identity as changing shape into a space of recognition that encourages “affinity, not identity” (277). Incorporating Chela Sandoval's concept of differential and oppositional consciousness, Haraway suggests that membership within discourse communities should refuse stability offered to them by (un)naturalized categories such as gender, race, sex, or class (277). Rather affinity is negotiated and fluid. This reconceptualization reminds me of Williams' call for the re-metaphorization of the base-superstructure model within Marxist theory. This then plays into my interest in queer(ed) poetics as not only a way of reading texts but of also re-conceptualizing the body within language and how it discursively moves throughout cultural discourse(s).
I also think that blogs can provide a way for this affinity to be fostered. How does one negotiate their subjectivity within cyberspace. How can bonds of affinity be formed from the mediation of a computer screen and keyboard? The possibilities are endless.



Theory Journal Week Four
Graeme Turner, British Cultural Studies, 71-181
As I blog these journal entries I am struck by the way in which Turner talks about methodology within cultural studies. Indeed, I thought the his discussion of textual analysis and of Stuart Hall's endcoding/decoding article provocative I thought that this discussion was important in various ways. By observing the way in which Hall's concepts of audience reception of information (especially through media forms) and Brunsdon and Morley's case study of Nationwide he draws attention to the fact that his type of analysis is highly selective (79). Therefore, this case study (in tandem with other media case studies outlined in the chapter) demonstrates how notions of “'objectivity', 'neutrality', 'impartiality' and 'balance'” are ideological tools that shore up assumptions about cultural constituents that may not necessarily be an accurate portrayal of cultural trends. Since, certain other(ed) groups within the wider population are not at all accounted for a cultural studies approach would look at issues of legitimacy and voice In other words, what counts as an audience and who gets to decide.
The same is true as I blog this entry. What is the function of blogs in the first place. What kind of work is this doing, anyway? These questions only further other questions that bounce around in my mind. For instance, what does blogging tell us about access to technology? Is this a class/socio-economic phenomenon? Can spaces of resistance be created that challenge and/or critique social practice? Is the phenomenon of blogging an indicator of community practice(s) or communities of practice? If so, how? In what ways is power and knowledge being disseminated through the cultural work of blogging communities? These are also issues that I think can be linked to issues of queerness (and a queer[ed] poetics) within language and subject negotiation.


Theory Journal Week Three
Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature, 95-135
One of the major points that I see Williams making in Marxism and Literature is the inadequacy of Marxism's metaphor of the base-superstructure. In this chapter, Williams is calling for a re-metaphorization of base-superstructure as it pertains to cultural analysis. Part of this re-metaphorization requires us to look at culture as a fluid process that cannot (or will not) be constrained by strict lines of demarcation. So instead of turning the base-superstructure on its head perhaps we should turn it over on its side. To look at how both sides of the metaphor discursively rely on each other and that one (typically the superstructure) organically emerges from the other (meaning the base).
I am really interested in Williams' project of re-metaphorization within Marxist study because not only is culture as a whole re-conceptualized but the way in which we examine bodies within culture are also seen differently. Instead of seeing the body inertly embedded within culture it can, instead, be seen as moving on a continuum. By continuum, I do not mean a straight line rather a discursive movement that stops, starts, rests, and meanders (for lack of a better word). This reconceptualization of the base-superstructure metaphor is part and parcel to theoretical considerations of queerness and how queer(ed) bodies are marked within culture(s). I also think that this is a way of reading texts that resonates with my overall project of a queer(ed) poetics.


Theory Journal Week Two
Graeme Turner, British Cultural Studies, pp. 1-37
The first chapter in this book compliments the During piece of last week. Turner gives the reader an overview of what the field of cultural studies entails while also touching upon some key theoretical ideas that underpin its epistemological make-up. However, it was in the last section to this chapter that I thought was most valuable. Looking at the political figure of the Taliban leader Hamid Karzai, Turner shows us how a cultural studies approach frames this object of analysis intertextually. How this person dressed and how he was represented in the media shapes cultural perceptions of how a First World Western society defines non-Western otherness. Indeed, these perceptions are based upon “both difference and similarity” (29).
With both the Turner and the During pieces, I am beginning to frame within my mind how a cultural studies approach would benefit my project of queer(ed) poetics. I can see how issues of queerness, communities of practice and ways of reading texts subversively can shape themselves into a praxis of cultural studies. However, I just don't know the (theoretical) specifics yet. Some questions in my mind reflect this dissonance. What kind of practices are cultural studies? Do other theoretical approaches such as psychoanalysis or deconstruction appropriately fall under the purview of cultural studies? Turner talks about Saussure's influence on cultural studies but how does language and rhetoric figure into the cultural studies scenario?


Theory Journal Week One
“Introduction” by Simon During in The Cultural Studies Reader
I thought that this introduction was an excellent source in the contexualization of cultural studies. I must admit that I had a very limited view of just what cultural studies involved. What struck me as deeply profound was the way in which During described the field of cultural studies and the intellectual and political work that it is capable of doing.
Cultural studies can provide space for, and knowledge of, the multiple audiences and communities who, in various combinations, vote, buy records, watch television and films, etc, without ever fitting the “popular,” “ordinary,” or “normal.” This is another reason to examine the techniques by which social values, attitudes, and desires are measured, as well as to demystify the political uses of representations like the “silent majority” and “ordinary American.” In this way, cultural studies can begin to intervene on the cultural market's failure to admit full cultural multiplicity —particularly if (going with cultural populism) it accepts that, in principle, cultural markets can provide a variety of products, pleasures, and uses, including transgressive and avant-garde ones. (20)
This gave me a deeper understanding as to why some of the articles that were included within this reader were present. I had a hard time trying to conceptualize how Donna Haraway or Judith Butler would be considered cultural studies work. But, in my interpretation of what During is telling me, the body/subject within culture is embedded within many fields of cultural discourse (21) that not only examine popular culture or media studies, but the way in which all aspects of culture weave themselves throughout our (now) global landscape. So it would make sense to me that Butler and Haraway would be included within a cultural studies reader because they sift through the various ideologies that embed and inscribe the body through the dissemination of knowledge and power.