Week 4 – Cultural Studies: Barker; Chp. 8

A thought struck me as I was reading about Subjectivity and Identity, and of the particular foundation with which these cultural studies have been based.  Marx if from Germany, Foucalt and Derrida from France, Leavis and Arnold from Enlgand, Hall from the US, Barker himself from Australia, etc.  I may, of course, be inaccurate here but it seems to me that these theories around language and the approach to cultural studies is based on a decidedly western and modern discourse.  Not that this is bad, and perhaps the study itself arose out of modernity’s penchant for knoweldge, systemization, structures, etc.  Some of the non-western voice has been included; however, I have found that Barker communicates as though these things are universal truths that dictate cultural formation, subjectivity and identity, when we should also hold loosely this very vein of approach that has grown out of one view: the western discourse.

~ by Brian on February 1, 2008.