Week 5 Reading handout (Davis/Espinal)

 Academe and the Organic Intellectual

Morley, David. “Cultural Studies and Common Sense: Unresolved Questions.” 

– Draws inspiration from Hall’s (1977) “Culture, the Media and the Ideological Effect” to defend “the interdisciplinary nature of the cultural studies project” (p. 245).

– Utilizes Hall’s characterization of the “cultural turn” as a return to allegedly antiquated sociological ideas (p. 246)

– Anthropology, too, is an alleged victim of cultural studies. A debate hosted by the anthropology department at Manchester University centered around the motion: “Cultural Studies will be the death of Anthropology” (p. 247).

– Studying consumption is still important; Hall’s (1973) idea that the circuit of culture does not care where you start because you have to go all the way around.

– Good cultural studies work is still about asking good questions. 

Keywords: sociology; anthropology; depoliticization; common sense

Giroux, Henry. “Public Pedagogy as Cultural Politics: Stuart Hall and the Crisis of Culture.” 

– Cites Hall’s work as an “important theoretical framework for making pedagogy central to the politics and practice of cultural production” (p. 134)

– Giroux dismisses the perspective of economic determinism and Todd Gitlin (one of “several renegades from the New Left”) (p. 135)

– Discusses culture as public pedagogy, suggesting that concepts like articulation can serve pedagogic ends in the classroom and more broadly. This is important and political, he suggests.

Keywords: pedagogy; public pedagogy; cultural politics 

Peter N. Kiang, “Crossing Boundaries, Building Community,” 

–Critique the faculty tenure system, and the individualistic reward practices, and propose an integrative perspective by “sharing voices, crossing boundaries, and building communities” (p. 49).

–Community building involves integrating students’ cultural backgrounds into teaching and incorporating personal experiences to connect the classroom with everyday life. This enables bridging boundaries of “race, culture, gender, and class to foster collaboration and build coalitions” (p. 50).

– Emphasizes that sharing voices in his graduate education courses promotes a student-centered approach and highlights the importance of using primary sources for content. (p. 50)

Keywords: crossing boundaries, university-community, student-centered pedagogy. 

Hall and Cheng, “The Formation of a Diasporic Intellectual”

–Hall’s upbringing was significantly shaped by the colonial and imperial context in which his parents were born. Both race and class played crucial roles in shaping his early life, influencing his perspective and intellectual inquiries.  

–Migrating to Oxford marked a significant point in his intellectual development. The academic environment at Oxford, alongside the political and cultural movements of the time, influenced him. –He became politically active, contributing to the New Left Review, where he engaged with political ideas of the era.

–Migration has become one of the defining experiences of modernity. “Since migration has turned out to be the world-historical event of late modernity, the classic postmodern experience turns out to be the diasporic experience” (p. 492). This perspective underscores how displacement and migration are central to understanding diasporas. 

Keywords: diaspora; Jamaica; colonialism; (anti)imperialism. 

Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdEAZzL8Bwg 

Education Buzzwords Defined: What Is Culturally Responsive Teaching? Uploaded by Edutopia on November 18, 2022.