Literary Theory Cultural Memory, Postcolonial Studies: Literature in Context

1. Literary TheoryCultural Memory, Postcolonial Studies: Literature in Context

2. LiteraryTheory Cultural Memory, Postcolonial Studies: Literature in Context

3. Cultural Studies Cultural Memory Postcolonial Studies

4. Literature in Context Period Study, Literary History, Cultural Memory, Literatures in English, Post-colonial Studies, Literary Translation: - interrelated notions or approaches to the study of literature - attempts at a scientific approach and a systematic study of literature and its phenomena.

5. Literature in Context University curricula: based on literary kinds based on literary periods based on individual authors based on literary theories based on social context

6. Cultural StudiesSee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies Term coined by Richard Hoggart , 1964 founded the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Hoggart, Richard:The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working Class Life. London: Chatto and Windus, 1957 Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society, 1780-1950. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

7. Richard Hoggart(1918)

8. Raymond Williams(1921-1988)

9. Cultural Studies Literary periods in a cultural context Raymond Williams: Culture and Society: art and society areseen together 'culture' as a totalexpression of a way of life Cultural Studies: contemporary, popular Period Study: various forms of artwithin a historical periodin a social, political context

10. Cultural StudiesSee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies - an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism - generallyconcerns the political nature of contemporary culture,as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, anddefining traits - concentrates on how aparticular medium or message relates to matters of ideology, social class, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender

11. Cultural StudiesSee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies - combines feminist theory, social theory, political theory, history, philosophy, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, communication studies, political economy, translation studies, museum studies and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in various societies - focuses on ways in which meaning is generated,disseminated, and produced through various practices, beliefs, institutions, and political, economic, or socialstructures within a given culture

12. Cultural StudiesSee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies - concerns itself with the meaning and practices of everyday life cultural practices: the ways people do particular things (watching television, eating out etc) in a given culture - analyses local and global forms of resistance to Western hegemony (political concerns)

13. Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom:IntroducingCultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997 Five main characteristics of cultural studies: 1. Aims to examine its subject matter in terms of cultural practices and their relation to power. E.g., a study of a subculture (white working class youth in London) would consider the social practices of the youth as they relate to the dominant classes.

14. Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom:IntroducingCultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997 Five main characteristics of cultural studies: 2. It has the objective of understanding culture in all its complex forms and of analyzing the social and political context in which culture manifests itself.

15. Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom:IntroducingCultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997 Five main characteristics of cultural studies: 3. It is both the object of study and the location of political criticism and action. For example, not only would a cultural studies scholar study an object, but she/he would connect this study to a larger, progressive political project.

16. Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom:IntroducingCultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997 Five main characteristics of cultural studies: 4. It attempts to expose and reconcile the division of knowledge, to overcome the split between tacit cultural knowledge and objective (universal) forms of knowledge. 5. It has a commitment to an ethical evaluation of modern society.

17. Cultural StudiesSee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies I text In the context of cultural studies, the idea of a text not only includes written language, but also films, photographs, fashion or hairstyles: the texts of cultural studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of culture.

18. Cultural StudiesSee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies culture concept of “culture" also widened: - traditional high culture (the culture of ruling social groups) - popular culture, and also - everyday meanings and practices (last two have become the main focus)

19. Cultural StudiesSee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies comparative cultural studies A further andrecent approach is comparative cultural studies, based on thediscipline of comparative literature and cultural studies.

20. Cultural StudiesSee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies Cultural studies is not a unified theory but a diverse field of study encompassing many different approaches, methods, and academic perspectives; as in any academic discipline, cultural studies academics frequently debate among themselves.

21. Tony Harrison

22. Tony Harrison (1937)

23. Tony Harrison: V(1985)

24. Harrison Tony Harrison (1937) V - a poem written in 1985. - describes the poet’s visit to his parents' grave in a Leeds cemetery and finding that the place was “littered with beer cans and vandalised by obscene graffiti” The cemetery: Holbeck cemetery in the Beeston area of Leeds. It overlooks the Elland Road football ground. Tony Harrison grew up in this neighbourhood.

25. Harrison political references - written under the premiership of Mrs. Thatcher, during the 1984-1985 miners’ strike - also makes reference to National Union of Mineworkers’ leader, Arthur Scargill.

26. Harrison Motto My father still reads the dictionary every day. He says your life depends on your power to master words.' Arthur Scargill Sunday Times, 10 January 1982

27. Harrison The poem incorporates the graffiti on the grave into its own text. The graffiti include mostly obscene swear words and the name of the local football club in the abbreviated form “United”. The poem explores the ambiguous meaning of it: that of a football club, or a feeling of social unity in a broader sense.Also, there is much punning on the word „v”.

28. Harrison If love of art, or love, gives you affront that the grave I'm in's graffitied then, maybe, erase the more offensive FUCK and CUNT but leave, with the worn UNITED, one small v. Victory? For vast, slow, coal-creating forces that hew the body's seams to get the soul. Will earth run out of her 'diurnal courses' before repeating her creation of black coal?

29. Harrison The poem also makes reference to the “versuses” of life “communism v. fascism” “Left v. Right” “white v. black” “man v. woman” “rich v. poor”, etc.

30. Harrison These Vs are all the versuses of life From LEEDS v. DERBY, Black/White and (as I've known to my cost) man v. wife, Communist v. Fascist, Left v. Right, Class v. class as bitter as before, the unending violence of US and THEM, personified in 1984 by Coal Board MacGregor and the NUM, Hindu/Sikh, soul/body, heart v. mind, East/West, male/female, and the ground these fixtures are fought on's Man, resigned to hope from his future what his past never found.

31. Harrison These Vs are all the versuses of life From LEEDS v. DERBY, Black/White and (as I've known to my cost) man v. wife, Communist v. Fascist, Left v. Right, Class v. class as bitter as before, the unending violence of US and THEM, personified in 1984 by Coal Board MacGregor and the NUM,

32. Harrison Hindu/Sikh, soul/body, heart v. mind, East/West, male/female, and the ground these fixtures are fought on's Man, resigned to hope from his future what his past never found.

33. Harrison A filmed version of V. was broadcast by Channel 4 in October 1987. Prior to that conservative MPs protested against it in the parliament and in the press. Gerald Howarth said that Harrison was “Probably another bolshie poet wishing to impose his frustrations on the rest of us”. Harrison replied that Howarth was “Probably another idiot MP wishing to impose his intellectual limitations on the rest of us”.

34. Cultural Memory How we create an image of the past, How we make sense of our past from our present, How we understand ourselves and our past, What stories we tell to ourselves about ourselves,

35. Cultural Memory What we choose to remember or forget, How we explain the reasons why we remember or forget something, How we make sure that we hand over the memories that matter to us

36. Cultural Memory as a Concept • Introduced to the archaeological disciplines by Jan Assmann Assman’s definition: the "outer dimension of human memory"  • "memory culture“ (Erinnerungskultur) • "reference to the past“(Vergangenheitsbezug) https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.0.html

37. Communicative Memory vs Cultural Memory communicative memory: memories that an individual shares with his contemporaries. cultural memory: based on fixed points in the past. Even in the cultural memory, the past is not preserved as such but is cast in symbols as they are represented in oral myths or in writings, performed in feasts, and as they are continually illuminating a changing present. In the context of cultural memory, the distinction between myth and history vanishes.

38. Communicative Memory vs Cultural Memory Even in the cultural memory, the past is not preserved as such but is cast in symbols as they are represented in oral myths or in writings, performed in feasts, and as they are continually illuminating a changing present. In the context of cultural memory, the distinction between myth and history vanishes.

40. Communicative and Cultural MemoryJAN ASSMANN Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning (Hg.), Cultural Memory Studies. An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, Berlin, New York 2008. Jan Assmann, “Communicative and Cultural Memory” 109-118 Aleida Assmann, “Canon and Archive” 97-108

41. Cultural MemorySee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory memory Memory is aphenomenon that is directlyrelated to the present; ourperception of the past isalways influenced by thepresent, which means that it is always changing.

42. Cultural MemorySee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory Because memory is not just an individual,private experience but is also part of thecollective domain, cultural memory hasbecome a topic in both historiography andcultural studies. historiography emphasizescultural memory’sprocess and implications cultural studies: emphazises cultural memory’s objects

43. Cultural MemoryHistoriographical approachSee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory distinction between memory and history put forward by Pierre Nora memories: the events that actually happened histories: subjective representations of what historians believe is crucial to remember

44. Cultural MemoryHistoriographical approachSee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory In order to understand the past, it had to be represented through history. As people realized that history was only one version of the past, they became more and more concerned with their own cultural heritage (in French called patrimoine) which helped them shape a collective and national identity.

45. Cultural MemoryHistoriographical approachSee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory More recently: questions whether there ever was a time in which 'pure', non-representational memory existed. Representation is a crucial precondition for human perception in general: pure, organic and objective memories can never be witnessed as such.

46. Cultural Memory In an oral tradition, all cultural representations are easily remembered ones; hard-to-remember representations are forgotten, or transformed into more easily remembered ones, before reaching a cultural level of distribution. Dan Sperber, Explaining Culture. A Naturalistic Approach. Malden, MSA: Blackwell, 1996, 74

47. Cultural MemoryCultural Studies approachSee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory embodied memory the body can be seen as a container, or carrier of memory also in psychiatry: Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score. Viking, 2014 memory contained in objects souvenirs and photographs in the cultural memory discourse.

48. Cultural MemoryCultural Studies approachSee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory photography The act oftaking a picture can underline the importance ofremembering, both individually and collectively. Pictures cannot only stimulate or helpmemory, but can rather eclipse the actual memory –when we remember in terms of the photograph – orthey can serve as a reminder of our propensity toforget.

49. Cultural MemoryBetween Culture and Memory: ExperienceSee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory experience lived or imagined experience relates to culture and memory: - is influenced by them - determines them at the same time The rise of gender and postcolonial studies underscored the importance of the individual and particular memories of those unheard in most collective accounts: women, minorities, homosexuals, etc.

50. Cultural MemoryBetween Culture and Memory: ExperienceSee:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory Culture influences experience by offering mediated perceptions that affect it. In turn, experience affects culture, since individual experience becomes communicable and therefore collective. A memorial, forexample, can represent a shared sense of loss. Experience is substantial to the interpretation of culture as well as memory, and vice versa.