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appropriate areas of study
Dec. 18th, 2011 12:18 pmI was reading a newspaper comments thread (again. yes. sorry.)
this time about an article on a sociology course about Jay-Z.
I know nothing about Jay-Z.
But the comments were often going on about how it's a terrible thing to study because hip hop is full of misogyny, homophobia, crime etc etc etc
... I wonder if they've ever studied English, or Cultural Studies, or indeed read most texts produced in Western culture.
The point of English & Cultural Studies thus far, the method of study in most units, is:
Take a text. Read it. Find out how it sucks. Notice the places that are racist, sexist, homophobic, and really weird about disabled people. Pull it into tiny raggedy pieces until you can see all the sharp edges.
Go 'hmmmm'.
Take your new found knowledge and, now you can identify texts full of gross examples formed in earlier historical periods, aim your toolkit at stuff closer to home.
See current texts. Radio, television, magazines, books. Every area, pop culture through fancy literary award stuff.
Pull it into tiny raggedy pieces and see sharp edges that, on close examination, are pretty much the exact same issues, in new clothing.
Realise it all sucks.
... this is why I've got fed up of studying. 'It all sucks' is not a conclusion I want to stop at. I just keep finding more isms all over all everything anyway. Boo.
So! Whatever text you want to start with, whether it be Homer of the Classics or of the Simpsons, whatever the artist being studied that the commentariat are currently bemoaning, Lady Gaga studies or Jay-Z in sociology, the important thing is the toolkit. You learn to sift it for attitudes, to connect it to conditions of production and consumption, to find how art is shaped by the world of artists and readers, and what fucked up things sneak into it when you're not looking. In my current degree course we've studied everything from Greek tragedy up to postmodern graphic novels, and to be honest I've hated most of it, but hand me a text and ask me to hunt down the attitudes to women, ethnicity, disability and queerness therein, and I'll be all over that. And if what you learn from studying these things is that they are in fact fucked up, well, welcome to Cultural Studies. All ur ideologies belong to competing discourses. Big mess all over the place. Learn the toolkit and you can find where the tensions are at and what particular big messes are all over this one.
We also studied much about class. Since class never made much sense to me, I'm not so hot at analysing for that. But you don't usually go far wrong in the last couple hundred years by reading a text as if it's all about How Middle Class White Heterosexual Men Are The Bestest. And if you find that turns out to be difficult, and if there is in fact a completely different bestest in this one, well that's a delightful surprise.
And you know what kind of artists most reliably draw the commentariat's ire?
... the ones that might just possibly have a different idea of bestest. On account of not being the standard one.
Which suggests to me tis exactly the sort of class we need more of.*
*as long as I don't have to do it. Two semesters, an essay, and a dissertation to go, and then I'm sooooo out of here.
this time about an article on a sociology course about Jay-Z.
I know nothing about Jay-Z.
But the comments were often going on about how it's a terrible thing to study because hip hop is full of misogyny, homophobia, crime etc etc etc
... I wonder if they've ever studied English, or Cultural Studies, or indeed read most texts produced in Western culture.
The point of English & Cultural Studies thus far, the method of study in most units, is:
Take a text. Read it. Find out how it sucks. Notice the places that are racist, sexist, homophobic, and really weird about disabled people. Pull it into tiny raggedy pieces until you can see all the sharp edges.
Go 'hmmmm'.
Take your new found knowledge and, now you can identify texts full of gross examples formed in earlier historical periods, aim your toolkit at stuff closer to home.
See current texts. Radio, television, magazines, books. Every area, pop culture through fancy literary award stuff.
Pull it into tiny raggedy pieces and see sharp edges that, on close examination, are pretty much the exact same issues, in new clothing.
Realise it all sucks.
... this is why I've got fed up of studying. 'It all sucks' is not a conclusion I want to stop at. I just keep finding more isms all over all everything anyway. Boo.
So! Whatever text you want to start with, whether it be Homer of the Classics or of the Simpsons, whatever the artist being studied that the commentariat are currently bemoaning, Lady Gaga studies or Jay-Z in sociology, the important thing is the toolkit. You learn to sift it for attitudes, to connect it to conditions of production and consumption, to find how art is shaped by the world of artists and readers, and what fucked up things sneak into it when you're not looking. In my current degree course we've studied everything from Greek tragedy up to postmodern graphic novels, and to be honest I've hated most of it, but hand me a text and ask me to hunt down the attitudes to women, ethnicity, disability and queerness therein, and I'll be all over that. And if what you learn from studying these things is that they are in fact fucked up, well, welcome to Cultural Studies. All ur ideologies belong to competing discourses. Big mess all over the place. Learn the toolkit and you can find where the tensions are at and what particular big messes are all over this one.
We also studied much about class. Since class never made much sense to me, I'm not so hot at analysing for that. But you don't usually go far wrong in the last couple hundred years by reading a text as if it's all about How Middle Class White Heterosexual Men Are The Bestest. And if you find that turns out to be difficult, and if there is in fact a completely different bestest in this one, well that's a delightful surprise.
And you know what kind of artists most reliably draw the commentariat's ire?
... the ones that might just possibly have a different idea of bestest. On account of not being the standard one.
Which suggests to me tis exactly the sort of class we need more of.*
*as long as I don't have to do it. Two semesters, an essay, and a dissertation to go, and then I'm sooooo out of here.