Author: Tomaselli, Keyan
Date: 1995
Published: In Africa Media Review, 9(3), 1-31.
Copyright: Keyan G Tomaselli Abstract

This paper discusses the lineage of British cultural studies in relation to its historical antecedents in Britain amnd Germany, and with regard to developments in the USA, South America and Africa. Cultural and media studies are contrasted with American administrative research and the `mass society' thesis. Cultural studies seek emancipation: addministrative research contributes to social control. The paper ends with a discussion of African cultural theorists and their application of Marxism in anti-olonial struggles on the continent. Some of the problems evident in such scholars and activists as Cabral, Fanon and ngugi wa Thiong'o are examined. The paper argues that the history of cultural studies during the 20th Century is a history of the ideological mobilisation of the term `culture'.

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Author: Shepperson, Arnold
Date: 1996
Place: Durban, South Africa
Published: No
Type of product: Short paper
Copyright: Arnold Shepperson and Centre for Cultural and Media Studies, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa The Centre for Cultural and Media Studies (CCMS) at the University of Natal in Durban (UND), South Africa, was founded in 1986 as the Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit. As the original name suggested, we originally based our teaching and research on work which had been going on for some 20 years at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in England.

Cultural studies was developed from Marxist reworking of literary criticism, to develop a broader and less economically dogmatic form of social and political criticism. This was done by examining different kinds of expression as if they were texts having a similar status to that of intellectual literature. Forms of expression like women's radio shows, television soap operas, youth fashion and pop music, for example, were studied in relation to wider trends in education, the economy, and English class values. This provided new ways of dealing with trends in the United Kingdom, and later in America and Australia.

However, research in South Africa showed that the conditions we had to deal with were rooted in a much more violent history of dispossession and exploitation than existing cultural studies approaches were able to explain. In England and America, for example, people of colour are minorities who are not formally excluded from the generally accepted system of civil rights. They have recourse to the law and the courts when they find themselves subjected to discrimination at work, in their studies, or when they are looking for a place to stay.

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Author: Shepperson, Arnold
Date: 1996
Type of Product: Mimeo. Background to Cultural Policy, research in the Graduade programme in Cultiral and media Studies, university of Natal, Durban.
Copyright: Arnold Shepperson
Published: No. Publications relating to this early briefing paper are available in the list provided in the Bibliography. The Centre for Cultural and Media Studies (CCMS) at the University of Natal in Durban (UND), South Africa, was founded in 1986 as the Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit. As the original name suggested, we originally based our teaching and research on work which had been going on for some 20 years at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in England.

Cultural studies was developed from Marxist reworking of literary criticism, to develop a broader and less economically dogmatic form of social and political criticism. This was done by examining different kinds of expression as if they were texts having a similar status to that of intellectual literature. Forms of expression like women's radio shows, television soap operas, youth fashion and pop music, for example, were studied in relation to wider trends in education, the economy, and English class values. This provided new ways of dealing with trends in the United Kingdom, and later in America and Australia.

However, research in South Africa showed that the conditions we had to deal with were rooted in a much more violent history of dispossession and exploitation than existing cultural studies approaches were able to explain. In England and America, for example, people of colour are minorities who are not formally excluded from the generally accepted system of civil rights. They have recourse to the law and the courts when they find themselves subjected to discrimination at work, in their studies, or when they are looking for a place to stay.

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Author: Masemola, Pinky
Date: 1999

Structuralism refers to the sociological concept that is based on social formation that determines human behaviour and the issue that society is subsequent to individuals. Althusser (1971: p.123-125), a Marxists structuralist argues that every social formation (structure in dominance) emerges from a dominant mode of production, that is, the link between forces of production and relations of production. This refers to the tools and machinery the capitalist need to use for the production of the final economic product to be consumed by the buyer and to the relationship the owner has with the labourers. He names this process the reproduction of conditions of production. This discussion shall focus on Althusser's thesis that the reproduction of the relations of production is secured in part by the legal-political and ideological superstructures. To support this statement the argument will be based on the reproduction of the means of production and the reproducing of the labour power. Secondly, what is meant by the state apparatus and the Ideological State Apparatuses and their impact on the reproduction of the relations of production?

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Author: Foko, Thato
Date: 1999
Background

The founding members of the British Cultural Studies (BCS) in trying to shape the content and the direction of cultural studies found themselves dealing with '...post-war British society, ... entering a period of change and development whose terms were set by the terms of the post-war 'settlement. ... The 'settlement' - defined by the revival of capitalist production, the founding of the welfare state and 'the cold war' appeared to bring economic, political and cultural forces into new kinds of relation, into a new equilibrium (Hall, 1990: 16).

These founders of the BCS concerned themselves with questions such as, (i) what qualitative breaks with the past were necessary? (ii) Was Britain still a capitalist civilisation or a post-capitalist one? (iii) Was the emergence of a welfare state representation of a fundamental or merely a superficial reordering of society? The more one reads these people's writing the more one becomes aware that they were dealing with cultural studies as it pertained to the post-war era. "The depression and the war appeared to have established certain critical breaks with earlier development" (Hall, 1990: 16). As they tried to grapple with the post-war issues the more questions emerged. These issues centred around the constitutive part of the agenda of the early 'New Left', which many of the founders or contributors to the BCS were associated. They also defined the objectives, agenda and space in which Cultural Studies (CS) emerged. Therefore, from its inception, CS addressed awkward but relevant issues about contemporary post-war society and culture.

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Author: Claassen, Chris
Date: 1999

Roland Barthes' conception of myth evolved out of his interest in how everyday common sense,doxa, was presented as 'natural' and universal, and yet was connected to power relations in society (Hebdige 1993). Although a Marxist ethics directs his examination of myth, Barthes follows the structuralist method of semiotics to investigate the mechanics of myth. North (following Levi-Strauss) outlines four characteristics of structuralist analysis; firstly the shift from conscious to unconscious infrastructure; second, the emphasis on the relations between terms; thirdly, the synchronic study of the system; and finally, the study of general laws within the system (1990). Structuralism as a broad perception was the concern of thinkers throughout history, but as a post-war homogenous perception and mode of thought, structuralism has its base in the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, who is also a starting point for Barthes and myth.

Roland Barthes follows on from Saussure' s dyadic model of the sign as constituted by a signifier and signified. These components are inseparable from the sign; they are constructed as to be the necessary elements of the sign. This is similar to Hjemsle's dyadic model of expression (signifier) + content (signified) = sign, but opposed to a triadic system such as that of Pierce, which states: representamen + interpretant + object = sign (North 1990). The difference for Saussure (and Barthes) is the removal of the referent, the thing that is 'stood for'. Saussure rather emphasizes the mentalistic nature of semiosis, signifier and signified are psychological entities that occur as a result of psychological and social experience (North 1990). As such, semiosis as per Saussure is a subjective experience, and this is a fundamental attribute of a structuralist system, the creation, rather than the discovery of meaning (Hawkes 1977).

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Refereed Journals

"Psycho-Babble, Post-LitCrit, Methodology and Dynamic Justice", Communicatio, 27(1), 2001.

"Blue is Hot, Red is Cold: Doing Reverse Cultural studies in Africa", Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies, 2001, 3, 283-318.

(With A Shepperson) "Re-Semiotizing the South African Democratic Project: The African Renaissance ", Social Semiotics, 11(1), 91-106.

(With A Shepperson) "The Australian Journalism vs Cultural Studies Debate: Implications for South African Media Studies", Communicatio, 26(1), 2000, 60-72.

"Misappropriating Discourses: Intercultural Communication Theory in South Africa, 1980-1995", Communal/Plural: Journal of Transnational and Crosscultural Studies, 7(2), 1999, 137-158.

"Cultural Studies and Renaissance in Africa: Recovering Praxis", Scrutiny2, 4(2), 43-48.

"Recovering Praxis: Cultural Studies in Africa", European Journal of Cultural Studies, 1998, 1(3), 387-402.

(With A Shepperson) "Cultural Studies and Theoretical Impoverishment", Ecquid Novi, 19(1), 1998, 89-99.

(With J Muller and A Shepperson) "Negotiations, Transitions and Uncertainty Principles: Critical Arts in the Worlds of the Post", Critical Arts, 10(2), 1996, i-xx111.

(With M Aldridge) "Cultural Strategies in a Changing Development: Reassessing Paulo Freire in the Information Age", Africa Media Review, 10(1), 1996, 54-72.

"The Marxist Legacy in Media and Cultural studies: implications for Africa", Africa Media Review, 9(3), 1995, 1-31. (Nairobi).

(With RE Tomaselli, PE Louw and AS Chetty): "Community and Class Struggle: Problems in Methodology", Journal of Communication Inquiry, 12(1) 1988, 11-25 (Iowa City).

"A Contested Terrain: Struggle Through Culture", Communicatio, 13(2) 1987, 54-66 (Pretoria). Reprinted from Inaugural Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.

"African Cultural Studies: Excavating for the Future", International Journal for Cultural Studies, 1(1), 1998, 143-154.

BOOKS AND CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

Rethinking Culture (Editor). Anthropos, Bellville, 1988. Reprinted: 1989, 151pp.

(With A Shepperson) "Culture, Media and the Intellectual Climate: Apartheid and Beyond". In Zegeye, A. and Kriger, R. (eds). Cultural Change and Development in South Africa. Zagreb: Culturelink, 1998/9, 35-58.

(With A Shepperson). "South African Cultural Studies: A Journal's Journey from Apartheid to the Worlds of the Post". In Denzin, N. (ed.). Cultural Studies: A Research Annual 5, 2000.

"Reading Stuart Hall in Southern Africa". In Gilroy, P., Grossberg, L. and McRobbie, A. (eds.). Without Guarantees: in Honour of Stuart Hall. London: Verso, 2000, 375-387

(With A Shepperson) "African Gnoses and Geometries of Difference: `Science' vs `Priest-Craft'". In Haines, R. and Wood, G. (1999) Africa After Modernity. Port Elizabeth: Institute for Planning and Development Research, UPE, 47-62.

(With J Muller) "Becoming Appropriately Modern: A Genealogy of Cultural Studies in South Africa 1948-1989. In Denzin, N. (ed). Cultural Studies: A Research Volume. 3. London: JAI Publishing, 1998, 53-74.

(With J Muller): "Literary Encounter: Cultural Studies in South Africa" in M Chapman, C Gardner, and E Mphahlele, Guide to South African English Literature. AD (Donker: Johannesburg, 1992)

(With J Muller): "Becoming Appropriately Modern: Towards a Genealogy of Cultural Studies in South Africa". In J Mouton and D Joubert, Knowledge and Method in the Human Sciences. HSRC (Pretoria) 1990, 272- 286.