Article,

Race, Culture, and Communications: Looking Backward and Forward at Cultural Studies

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Rethinking Marxism, 5 (1): 10--18 (1992)

Abstract

In a critical assessment and remembrance of cultural studies (CS), it is noted that the establishment (in 1964) of the Centre for Cultural Studies in Birmingham, England, was actuated by a burgeoning awareness of the need for rigorous, scholarly investigations of cultural changes in post-WWII England brought about by: the ascendancy of electronic mass media, the growth of youth cultures, and the effects of ""postcolonial"" subjects from Third World nations. Personal experiences as a founding member of the Centre are drawn on to explore the evolution of CS's methodology and its analytical dissection of racism in English culture. It is shown that CS's difficulty in analyzing race lies in the absences and displacement with which Western culture simultaneously perpetuates and dissimulates racial meanings, and positions subjects. The mission of CS, it is concluded, is to mobilize its intellectual resources to understand the differences that lie at the core of our cultures and ourselves.

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