A Brief Introduction to Cultural Studies

by Joseph Pivato

The image on the cover page is of the astronomical observatory in the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza, in the centre of the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. It is used here as a symbol for integrated studies since many ancient peoples had an holistic view of the relations between nature, science and culture. The Mayans had developed an elaborate and accurate yearly calendar, and so their astronomy was related to the growing seasons and to yearly ceremonial days. They are one of the two ancient peoples who had discovered the concept of zero in their mathematics, a system which was also applied with precision to the construction of their elaborate stone buildings.

The Mayan observatory can also represent the idea of cultural studies, the examination of human creativity in the context of social conditions. What do we understand by the word culture? For an anthropologist who studies early human beings culture can be defined as anything which is made by humans. This includes not just the paintings on ancient cave walls, but also stone and bone tools used every day for survival. In more complex societies culture became separated into the arts and the daily crafts of developing technology. The arts in religious ceremonies were not the same as the daily toll of hunting and gathering food. From our modern perspective of specialization the artists who decorated churches and temples were not the same as the stone masons who cut the stones and built the walls. Yet in the Renaissance artists like Michelangelo also worked in the stone quarries to cut pieces of stone which they needed for their sculptures. Here he shared many characteristics with those anonymous Mayan artists. So it is not always easy to separate a creative task from manual labour.

In cultural studies we examine the many aspects of human creativity in the material world. We study the arts in all their theoretical and critical contexts, but also in the larger economic, political and historical environments. Michelangelo, like the unknown Mayan sculptors, was influenced in his art by the religious and political conditions of his time. And we can better understand that art if we know what these religious and political forces were. Cultural studies encourages several different approaches to the research of any topic, rather than one disciplinary perspective. Because of its materialist roots cultural studies does not subscribe to the old separation between high culture and low culture.

High culture would include the major arts of literature, music, theatre, painting, ballet, etc. Within these fields it would also restrict the selection of works to a canon of the more important texts. The literary canon would include Shakespeare and Tolstoy but not popular writers like Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler. Cultural studies does not accept this separation since it is supposed to examine the whole of human creativity and not just a pre-selected canon of artists and texts. In general terms the social impact of the mystery novels of Agatha Christie and the detective novels of Raymond Chadler are just as important for cultural studies research as the plays of Shakespeare staged at Stratford.

While we study popular cultural phenomena we do so with all the theoretical and critical methods applied to any example of high culture. In this broader approach to research we do not ignore the text, but we do not limit our study to close reading alone as has often been the practice in the formalist methodologies which have dominated literary study from the 1930s to the 1980s.

We have identified six general areas of possible research under the heading of cultural studies: cultural theory, postcolonial studies, feminist and gender studies, film and media studies, literary theory and Canadian studies. They all suggest aspects of the origins of cultural studies: a critique of traditional practices in the social sciences, the postcolonial inquiry into the strategies for resistance to external powers, the social reform agenda from feminists, a critique of popular media, the practices in literary theory and the politics of the arts. We have included Canadian studies because it fits in well with the interdisciplinary theory and method of this program. For some researchers Canadian studies has strong links with postcolonial inquiry, as much as projects about Australia and New Zealand.

One of the ways to learn about cultural studies is to read the essays in the text, Cultural Studies (1992). We suggest that you begin with the following essays:

• Cary Nelson, et al. "Cultural Studies: An Introduction,"
• Tony Bennett, "Putting Policy into Cultural Studies,"
• James Clifford, "Travelling Cultures,"
• Stuart Hall, "Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies,"