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Interrogating Cultural Studies : Theory, Politics and Practice Bowman 00 prelims 18/11/03 13:35 Page iii Interrogating Cultural Studies Theory, Politics and Practice Edited by Paul Bowman Pluto P Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA Bowman 00 prelims 18/11/03 13:35 Page iv First published 2003 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Pluto Press and the Contributors 2003 The right of the editor and contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7453 1715 4 hardback ISBN 0 7453 1714 6 paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Interrogating cultural studies : theory, politics, and practice / edited by Paul Bowman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7453–1715–4 (hbk) –– ISBN 0–7453–1714–6 (pbk) 1. Culture––Study and teaching. 2. Culture––Study and teaching––Interviews. I. Bowman, Paul, 1971– . HM623.I58 2003 306'.071––dc21 2002010233 10987654321 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth EX10 9QG Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Towcester Printed and bound in the European Union by Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England Bowman 00 prelims 18/11/03 13:35 Page v Contents Acknowledgements vii 1 Introduction: Interrogating Cultural Studies 1 Paul Bowman Part One: From Cultural Studies 2 From Cultural Studies to Cultural Criticism? 19 Catherine Belsey 3 From Cultural Studies to Cultural Analysis: ‘A Controlled Reflection on the Formation of Method’ 30 Mieke Bal 4 The Projection of Cultural Studies 41 Martin McQuillan Part Two: Cultural Studies (&) Philosophy 5 Why I Love Cultural Studies 59 Simon Critchley 6 Two Cheers for Cultural Studies: A Philosopher’s View 76 Chris Norris Part Three: For Cultural Studies 7 Inventing Recollection 101 Adrian Rifkin 8 Becoming Cultural Studies: The Daydream of the Political 125 Griselda Pollock Part Four: What Cultural Studies 9 Friends and Enemies: Which Side is Cultural Studies On? 145 Jeremy Gilbert 10 … As If Such a Thing Existed … 162 Julian Wolfreys Bowman 00 prelims 18/11/03 13:35 Page vi vi Interrogating Cultural Studies Part Five: Positioning Cultural Studies 11 Cultural Studies, in Theory 175 John Mowitt 12 The Subject Position of Cultural Studies: Is There a Problem? 189 Jeremy Valentine 13 What Can Cultural Studies Do? 207 Steven Connor Part Six: Against Cultural Studies 14 Responses 221 Thomas Docherty 15 Unruly Fugues 233 Lynette Hunter Notes on Contributors 253 Index 256 Bowman 00 prelims 18/11/03 13:35 Page vii Acknowledgements This book would not have happened were it not for my friend, Mark Little, of the University of Northumbria. The idea was born in con- versation with him, we discussed ideas and deliberated who to invite, together. I am indebted to him for his support, intellectual stimula- tion and friendship during its preparation. No less importantly, I am grateful to Anne Beech at Pluto Press, just as I owe thanks to every one of the contributors to this collection, all of whom deemed it worthwhile enough to devote a lot of time and energy to. Thanks also to Alison Rowley, who carried out one of the interviews; and to Diane Elam, Sue Golding, Gary Hall, and Joanna Zylinska, all of whom have helped me to do this in various ways. Margaret Shaw, Head of Media and Cultural Studies at BSUC, worked timetabling wonders to help me out, and Fiona Montgomery, Head of School, provided some financial support for me to carry out a couple of the interviews. Many thanks to Barbara Engh for pointing me in this direction in the first place, years ago. Above all, though, I am indebted to my wife, Alice. Any errors, oversights, deficiencies, or faux pas, either of (inevitable mis)representation in the various introductions, or in the organisation and editing overall are, I hope, entirely my own. vii Bowman 01 chaps 18/11/03 13:34 Page 1 1 Introduction: Interrogating Cultural Studies Paul Bowman MISREPRESENTATION, MISCONSTRUAL Few, if any, entire academic fields have attracted more consistently febrile attention than cultural studies. It has always received criticism, invective, vituperation; often angry, often confused and confusing (mis)representations of what it is, what it does, and why it goes about things the ways it does. It has also, of course, had its fair share of celebration, (over)indulgent congratulation and flattery. These two types of reaction entail each other: if cultural studies has often announced itself as being somehow messianic or at least deeply consequential – ‘radical’, ‘revolutionary’, ‘emancipatory’, and so on – then it is surely inevitable that those who are not involved who often, obliquely or directly, find themselves to be the objects of its cutting critiques, will protest. On reflection, more or less everyone else in the university, every other discipline, has at one or another time been critiqued, criticised, even excoriated, by cultural studies. Those in the ‘old’ arts and humanities disciplines, those in the sciences, those who are involved in anything even remotely uncritical of things like ‘capitalism’ and ‘patriarchy’ have regularly found themselves accused of being not only old fashioned and out of date (hurtful and offensive enough accusations in themselves), but also to be responsible for perpetuating such evils as sexism, racism, elitism, ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism, homophobia, right-wing con- servatism, capitalist domination, social exclusion, and so on. When they retort that, actually, no, they do not believe themselves to be evil ministers of all forms of domination, exploitation, and exclusion, a chorus of cultural studies critics unequivocally reply: ‘Oh yes you are, you just don’t understand the ways in which you are.’1 Celebration and condemnation are entailed from the outset. And in many respects, this has become the dominant form of debate 1 Bowman 01 chaps 18/11/03 13:34 Page 2 2 Interrogating Cultural Studies around cultural studies, a discourse that has become something like a merry-go-round, or a pantomime (albeit one which may well have profoundly serious consequences). Cultural theorists of the notion of ‘performativity’, who argue that there is emancipatory potential in everyone’s propensity to ‘perform’ (and hence establish) different social identities, which might thereby transform the socio-political world, could perhaps do worse than to work out a way for cultural studies to step out of the pantomime-like, discursive black hole within which it has become embroiled. Amusing as ‘What you’re doing is bad!’, ‘Oh no it isn’t!’; ‘Oh yes it is!’, ‘Oh no it isn’t!’, can be for any young subject, surely one must grow out of it, or grow stale and pathetic. Needless to say, of course, this state of affairs is not simply something internal to cultural studies: it’s not exclusively its own fault, it does take two to tango. But if cultural studies is content to blame and decry others (who in turn criticise and deride it) for the lamentable quality of these academic exchanges, then, you could say, it has no one to blame but itself. This book was conceived with a view to attempting to transform the terms of the debate, and to do so paradoxically by reiterating some extremely traditional questions. My belief is that the histor- ically necessary and once vitally effective ‘high polemical moment’ of cultural studies has today become less than enabling, and more of an encumbrance. The radical polemics of the past have passed. Of course, what they concern has not been completed, finished, or exhausted. That is not what I’m suggesting. Cultural studies is indeed an incomplete project. However, just because evidence abounds of the continued proliferation of its chosen problematics, that does not mean that its own traditional strategies, or its standard ways of trying to intervene, have not become tired. What demands more attention today is the modality or manner of cultural studies’ efforts. The Foucauldian lessons about the need to repeat, in as many contexts and places as possible, that which you want to become laid down as ‘true’ in the ‘hearts and minds’ of the many, isn’t much jus- tification for this repetition when what is predominantly getting repeated is a fevered and systematically misrepresentative farce. What is repeated, regularly and in dispersion, are not simply the lessons of cultural studies (its intended messages), but rather their ‘reception’: not what they ‘in themselves’ articulate, but how they become articulated as something within a wider discursive context, for a wider audience. Bowman 01 chaps 18/11/03 13:34 Page 3 Introduction 3 Of course, we cannot ultimately control how what we say is received, nor how we ourselves are represented. But, of course, we also can. If not ‘ultimately’, then at least in certain contexts, in certain scenes, at certain times. Perhaps not ‘in the heat of the moment’, as it were, as in the initial polemical explosion of cultural studies’ appearance as part of a larger ‘discursive formation’ of basically very angry political and cultural movements. But perhaps one can begin to consider what one looks like to your interlocutors, if not when the flames themselves are under control, then at least when one’s relationship with the task becomes more structured, more regular. The present moment of cultural studies’ familiarity – its familiarity to itself and to its others2 – by virtue of its very pre- dictability, affords a unique opportunity for reassessment, and hence a new chance for revivification. What does the face cultural studies presents to the world look like and signify, and what reactions will that presence most likely elicit? There have got to be different ways of making something present, presenting ourselves, our case.
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