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Midwest Modern Language Association

A Course in "Cultural Studies"Author(s): Paul SmithSource: The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 24, No. 1, CulturalStudies and New Historicism (Spring, 1991), pp. 39-49Published by: Midwest Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1315024.

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A Course n CulturalStudiesPaul Smith

The purposeof this paper s not to makeanytendentious ntervention theo-reticalor practical into the multiformdebateswhich increasinglyattendtheriseof cultural tudies as a fieldordisciplinewithin theuniversityrightnow; nor toarguefor or to vindicateanyparticular pproacho cultural tudies n theclass-room. Rather,what follows is limited to a kind of reportage: hat is, I intend tosketchout someof the elements thatwent to form aparticular cultural tudiescourse, one that I designedand taught for the first time in the fall of 1990. Ofcourse, to undertake uch a reportage s not so innocenta task asI'dlike it to be.Justby dint of the fact thatanycourse s itself anintervention,arhetoricalgestureconstituted in a whole set of other rhetoricalgestures, a descriptionof it willreproducecertain assumptionsand produce particularmeanings. Equally, thedescriptionof a course is also an interventionof a sort even an argumentof asort-into a context wider than that of the school in which the course hasbeentaught; in that sense, this essaywill probablybe understoodas an act of persua-sion, though Idon'tfullyintendit to be. What I do mean,however, is to contrib-ute to a genrewhich I'mnot sureexists and, if it doesexist, whose conventionsI'm ignorant of, but whose existence seemsto me to be desirable: he genre ofessaysaboutthe detailsof our teaching.Thatis, I don't think thatteachers n thehumanitiescan do themselvesanyharmby breakingout of the almostcompleteisolation and even fearfulnessn which we usuallyconstructour syllabiand con-duct our teaching.Context

The course in question was rather ambitiously, even hubristically, calledWhat Is CulturalStudies? - rather ess to echo the title of RichardJohnson'swell known article,'and rathermoreto repeatandperhapsattemptto adumbrateananswerto a questionwhich gets frequentlyaskedat the schoolI teachat, Car-negie Mellon. The EnglishDepartmentat CarnegieMellon has had an under-graduatemajorin Literaryand culturalstudies since 1984.2 While there areother departmentalmajorsfor undergraduates creative writing, professional,and technicalwriting, andpossiblecombinationsof those),allmajorsof whateverstripetake anEnglishDepartmentcore coursesequence DiscursivePractices,DiscourseandHistoricalChange, and Reading20th-CenturyCulture ); his

innovativecoresequence s currently aughtexclusivelyby LiteraryandCulturalStudiesfaculty.Through the presenceof thisundergraduatetructure, he actualexistenceof afield ordisciplinecalled cultural tudies s moreorlesstakenforgrantedby Car-

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negie Mellonby now; andyet the natureof culturestudies what tasks t setsitself,what methods t employs,what results t claims,and soon-is badlyunder-stood, even by those sympatheticto it, and sometimesby those practicingit.Most of all, studentsbeyond the EnglishDepartmenthaveno realsenseof whatcultural tudies might be. Now, the EnglishDepartmenthastraditionally up-plied200-levelcourses ornon-majorswhich have had as theirrationale he intro-duction of aspectsof thedisciplineof Englishto studentsoutside thisdepartment,and indeed outside the College of Humanities and SocialSciences;suchcoursesare offered n partto fulfillnon-majorhumanitiesrequirements,andpartlywithaneye to attracting tudents nto theEnglishDepartment.Traditionallyandevenafter the establishmentof the somewhat radicalcurriculumof the LCS major,such 200-level courses have tended to be literaturesurveycourses, courses inShakespeare, ndthe like. Thus theyhadnot reallyrepresented nintroduction othe dominant culturalstudies strandof the Englishcurriculum.So What IsCulturalStudies? was establishedat the 200 level, in partas suchan introduc-torycourse,but alsoin partas away of showing that the LCSprogramwasconfi-dentenough in its own existenceto maketheeffortto explainthe natureof cul-tural studies to the campus.

Course AimsAt theintroductory evel, then, thecoursewas intendedto specifythekindsofapproaches ndtopics, as well as the kinds of theoreticalmaterial,that areto befoundwithin the threecorecoursesandwithin theprogram's ullercurriculumofculturalstudies. The aims that I established or the coursewere statedon the

syllabusas follows:Inevitably,n thespace f onesemester e shan't e able o answerullytheques-tion that the course's itle poses. Apartfrom otherconsiderations,culturalstudies s a fieldwhichpurportsobe able oinvestigateheculturalormationsfanyhistoricaleriod rculturalontext,whereashiscoursebyand arge estrictsitself o contemporarynglophoneulturen theNorth.However,bylookingatthisnarrow ultural ndhistoricalange ndalsoatsomeof the mportantheoreti-caltextsthatseemrelevanto it, we shallbeable oconsiderorourselvesomeofthecentral uestions ndproblemshat culturaltudies as ormulatedbout tsproject.At the riskofprejudicingurdiscussionf thosequestions ndproblems,it mightbeuseful o sayattheoutset hat culturaltudies s largely oncernedwith describingndexplaininghemultipleways n whichbothindividualsndsocialgroupsandtheircultural roducts ndartifacts reconstructedy, signifywithin,andalsoresisthedominant ulturalormationsf their imeandplace.Tosayeventhismuch,however, s alreadyo beginon anexplanationf social ela-tionsand t willbeaswell to bear n mind hat culturaltudies s adiscoursenand hroughwhichallexplanationsfculture,ncludinghoseof culturaltudiesitself,are o bequestioned.

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Threeof the mainassumptions hat I triedto use to informtheeverydaywork-ing of the coursecan be readfromthis opening description: irst, the notion thatcultural studies can deal with a variety of historically and geographicallylocated culturalformations, though alwayswith a theoreticalprojectin mind;second, that within those formations t is concernedwith the construction,sig-nification,andresistance f individualgroups nrelation o dominantcultural or-mations;andthird, that it is a disciplinewhose methodology is unsettled, ques-tioningitself andtheinterdisciplinenwhich it finds tself. This lastpointisderivedfrom an expressionof GayatriSpivak'sby which I have been struck andwhich Ithink mustbe a crucialpremise o the theoreticalprojectof cultural tudies : heidea of thepedagogyof the humanitiesasthe arenaof culturalexplanations hatquestion the explanationsof culture. 3

SyllabusEachof thoseaboveassumptions nformedmy selection of a syllabus.The firsttask was to seekwhat I cameduringthe course to callour objectof study :thatis, a time anda placewhere theconstruction,signification,andresistanceof indi-viduals and groups in relation to dominant culture formationscould be readthroughculturalprojectsand artifacts.And the second, though mostly simulta-neous taskwas to set a theoreticalagenda,that of choosing a set of largelytheo-retical texts which would provide students with what we often like to call abackground n the literatureof culturalstudies.The first taskproduceda numberof options which all dependedpretty muchupon my own levels of knowledge, expertise, experienceand, indeed, willing-ness. FromamongstseveraloptionsI settledupon someaspectsof Britishculturein the lastfortyyearsanddecided o useDick Hebdige'sbookHidingntheLightasa central ext and to actasacertainkind of guide throughsomeof thequestionsofthe constructionof Britishculture n that time. Around this text Igatheredsomeothersthataddressed omeof the samequestions:somefilms(SidandNancy,Abso-luteBeginners,Quadrophenia,ndPassionofRemembrance)swell asotherreadings(piecesfrom PaulGilroy,ThereAin'tNo Black ntheUnionJack,andStuartHall,ed., ResistanceThroughRitual). Togetherthese texts wereto proposeanumberofdifferenttopics, and ways of dealing with those topics aroundBritishculture,within a generalprojectof learningabout the relationsbetween subcultural ub-jects anddominantculture.The second taskwas to articulatewith this culturalmoment anumberof theo-reticaltexts fromamongst thosemanywhich might constitute aninchoate cul-turalstudies canon.Partof the issue herewas to providetexts which would, in a

sense,arguewith eachother, questioneachother'sexplanationsof culture; andanotherpartwas to allow studentsa familiaritywith some of the theorythat hashistoricallybeen of use to culturalstudies. With that last point in mind, thefirstthreeweeks of the classwerededicated o readingsof Freud,Marx,Gramsci,

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andAlthusser.To helpwith thisintroduction,we readchaptersromPatrickBrantlinger'srusoe'sFootprints,n accountof culture tudies s a discipline;thisbook didn't eem o helpthe studentsmuchandwassubsequentlyropped.After hat,webeganontheHebdige ook, nspissatingomeofHebdige'sopicswitharticlesyAdorno( Perennialashion-Jazz ),Bourdieu(the ntroductiontoDistinction),ebord(SocietyftheSpectacle),ndBenjamin TheWorkofArtin theAge of MechanicalReproduction ).The above extstookthe class o mid-semester.hereafter, e followed hetrack fHebdige'sook nto tsfinal ectionwhich s concerned iththe ssueofpostmodernismnd hepoliticsof itsproductions.Herewebegan or a shortwhilewithBarthes'sMythologies,hinkingof thatbook with its insistence nthe usefulnessf linguistic ndpsychoanalyticalaradigmsor theexplanationfculture asa kindofrevision fthemore modernist oncernsf thefirstpartofthecourse,andalsoas an introductiono someof the assumptionshat residebeneathHebdige'sext. Then, addressinghis issueof postmodernism oredirectly,we read hreeessaysromAndrewRoss, ed., Universalbandon:hePoliticsof Postmodernismmy own Visiting he BananaRepublic, MeaghanMorris nCrocodileundee,ndLauraKipnis'sssayonfeminism).These exts,alongwithGilroy'sndHall's, ookusto theendofthesemester,nd hesyllabusfinallyurnedout as follows:Week One Brantlinger,h. 1;Freud,PsychopathologyfEverydayife

WeeksTwo Marx,Althusser,Gramsci;andThree Brantlinger,h. 3WeekFour Hebdige,HidingntheLight;AdornoWeekFive BourdieuMovie:SidandNancyWeek Six Hebdige,Hiding...DebordMovie:AbsoluteBeginners

Week Seven Hebdige,Hiding...BenjaminMovie:QuadropheniaMid Semester

WeekEight Barthes,MythologiesWeeksNine Hebdige,Hiding...andTen EssaysromUniversalbandon?



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WeeksEleven StudentProjectsandTwelveWeekThirteen Hebdige,Hiding..

EssaysromResistancehroughitualWeekFourteen GilroyMovie:PassionofRemembrance

Students andPedagogyWhat sCultural tudies? enrolledeventeentudents,mostofwhom urnedout to be seniorsnvariousmajors crossheuniversity; nlythreeofthemwere

Englishmajors.Therewere two AfricanAmerican tudents ndslightlymorewomenthanmen. Thesestudentswere, nmyview,fairly epresentativef thekindsof studentsCarnegieMellonproduces.Althoughonlya coupleof themwere romEngineering,mostofthemweremajorsntheschool'sextremely osi-tivisticsocialsciencedepartmentsr from ts vocational ndcomputerizedrtschool.Mostofthemwouldhavehadvery ittleexposureo thekindsofthinkingthat I take culturaltudies o promote.Given hisparticular ixture, hreeconsequencesmmediatelynsued.First,withonlyseventeentudents heclasscouldbe a seminarwithlotsof room orquestionsnddiscussion;econd,with somany eniorshegeneralevelof discus-sioncouldbequiteadvanced;nd hird, hedifferentdisciplinaryackgroundsfthestudentswouldnecessitatehatsomediscussione entertainedbout he rela-tionof culturaltudies o the modesof otherdisciplines,nd t was ndeed hisdiscussionhatbegan he course.Foreachclass'seading ssignmentleft the studentsmoreorless o theirowndevices,apart romgivingthem a shortdescriptionf the reading ndtellingthembrieflywhatother exts t was ntendedo engagewith.Theplanwasthatclasses hould onsistn ageneral iscussion f thereadingsrof thefilmsseen.Usually hesediscussionsed to my givinga fifteen-or twenty-minutemini-lecture nwhichIattemptedopull ogether ndmake onnectionsamongsthevariouspoints hathadbeenbroughtup,whilealsobringingupissues hatI felthadbeenmissed runderplayed.otallclasses ctuallywent thatway,however.The mainreason or thiswas thatIbeganeachclassbyasking orquestions ndcomments boutthe previous lass,and the students'nterventionsherepro-voked ither longerecturerommyself, requally ftenafree-ranginglassdis-cussion rargument.Thusthecourse ouldbecharacterizedsbeingconductedquite nformally, scillating etweenclassdiscussion nd mprovisedecturing.

Thiswayofteaching ivesstudents lotofopportunityocontributeerbally,and t waspartly nthe nature nd requencyf theircontributionshatIgradedthestudentsn this class.Theirothermain askwasto produce finalproject.Here againthey were more or less left to theirown devices,although I encour-

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agedboth collaborativeffortsandprojectsn mediaotherthanwriting.I alsomonitoredheseprojectsrom he outsetbyasking ordescriptionsndmakingmyselfavailableorconsultationut ofclass.Theonlyother askwas an n-classwritingassignment here asked hem osummarizenasentencertwo eachofthe seventeenections fBenjamin'sTheWorkof Art n theAgeofMechanicalReproduction. hepointof this exercisewasto giveme a senseof eachof thestudents' raspof whatI taketo be the most difficultext in thesyllabus.A Narrativeof the Course

HereI canmentiononlyafewof thetopics hatwereputon the table n thiscourse,and 'vechosenonarrativizehese nsofar stheybroughtupwhatItaketo beimportantheoreticalssues.Again,I'mmostlyreportingather hanargu-inghere: hismeans hatmanyof the statements erearenotfullyelaboratedrdefendedutareputforwardimplyorepresentariouspositions ndclaimshatwerediscussedn the course. canonlyhopethatreadersowiththisnarrativewhatI hoped hestudentsdidwith it, namely, ecognizet asanintroductoryprovocationatherhanas afully ledged et ofviewsabout culturaltudies.shouldalsosaythatthe narrative ill tendto givea somewhat osyviewof thecohesion f thecourse:nfact,andbecausefthestyleofteachingadopted,deasandconnections ereprobablylotmore aggedntheirdevelopmenthan 'llbesuggesting.As I mentioned,he coursebeganwith a discussion-derivingromBrant-linger'sirstchapter n theideaof culturaltudies saresponseo a crisisor acrisismentalityn the humanities of thedisciplinarylaceof culturaltudies.OneremarkfBrantlinger'seceivedarticularttention: mostversions f liter-ary heorypoint nthedirectionfaunified,nter-oranti-disciplinaryheory ndpracticehat,forlackof abettername, s now oftencalledcultural tudies.' 4Thatremarkrovokedlot ofdiscussionbouthenature facademicisciplines.Particularly,tudentswanted o know how thefielddifferedrom,say,culturalanthropologyrevencertain indsofsociology, ithern its choiceofobject r nitsmethodologies.Myresponsewasto suggest hat culturaltudies ountersthe immobilizationn otherdisciplines f whatmightbe the sameobjectsofstudy; ndalso hat tsmethodologysnot fixedbut ratherouldbethoughtof asa kindof metacommentaryn assumptionsndmethodsn anydiscipline.Thefundamentalelf-authorizingesturen culturaltudies, claimed, asbeen hewillingnesso recognizehepolitical nd deological imensionsfanyrealm fstudyas t approachesparticularbject.Thuspartof culturaltudies' differ-ence s its insistence hatwe recognizehatallacademicisciplines-itselfn-cluded-functionpolitically nd deologically.Thisgeneralntroduction asfollowedbyadiscussion,hroughAlthusser,ftheway in which subjects repulled ntoplace,or interpellated,otjust assubjects f the law, but of amoregenerallyconceivedsetof cultural ormations



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andknowledges.Thedisciplinaryuestionwasagainbroughtuphere,withtheclaim hat n mostdisciplinaryonduct objectsfknowledge re horn ftheirpoliticaland deological ppurtenancey being solatedorstudy.Onegoalofculturaltudies wouldbe to recognizeheindefeasibleonnectednessf suchobjects fknowledge with eachotherandwiththecultural ontext nwhichtheysignifyand nwhich heirstudy ignifies, swell astheplace f the subjectin relationo thoseobjectsandknowledges.Thepoints hatI tried o makeabout henecessarilyolitical nd deologicalsignificancef culturalobjectsprovoked free-wheeling iscussion boutthecanon,about heculturalpolitics feducation,ndof theplaceof theuniversity.Inthatcontext t wasdifficultoavoid andI didn'tavoid proposing culturalstudies s n some ense resistantperation hich sdesignedointerrogatend

analyzehe elisionandannulment f thepoliticalunctions f theacademic. hispointwas subventedyAlthusser'sotionsofideology sthey lluminatedome-whata debate heclass onducted bout herecent ttack ytheNationalAssocia-tionofScholarsnawritingclass ttheUniversityfTexas.5twasatabout histimethatwe decided hatBrantlinger'sookwouldnotbeparticularlysefulnthiscourse, inceneither normostof thestudents admuch ime or hisantip-athyto thepoliticalproject f cultural tudies.Withinthesediscussionshe notionof resistance ademergedn avernacularway;the termwas takenupin thenextclasseshrough eadingsfFreud(Psycho-pathologyfEverydayife),sections fMarx ndGramsci,nda continuedeadingof Althusser.These texts became he occasion or beginning o theorize henotion of resistance.The important ointherewas to have studentsbegintothinkdialecticallybout henature fpoweranddominance(ratherhan hink nthe commonense ntinomiesheyhadbroughto thecourse: onsciousness/unconsciousness,tatepower/individualowerlessness,ppression/resistance,firstworld/thirdworld,and oon).Indeed,hese lasses ecameincreasinglyen-tralasthecoursewenton,sincethroughoutfoundmyselfwanting opress uitehardanotionofdialecticalhinking;nasense, t wasnounwelcomeurpriseome to learn ater hatmanyof thestudents ickedhisupasthemaintopicof thecourseandasoneof thecentrally efiningeatures f culturaltudies.Thiselaborationfanotionofresistancendof itsdialecticaloisewascrucialto theclass's eading f thefirstpartof Hebdige'sHidingn theLight,with itsaccount f thedialecticsfresistancendconsentnBritishpunk ubculture. hephrase hidingn thelight nfactbecame shorthandwayforus to refero thewayin whichthe logicof transgressionHebdige'swords)operates.Hebdigeclaims hatsubculturaltyle translateshefactofbeingunderscrutinyntothepleasure f beingwatched; 6his claimwas discussed t lengthasa potentialmodel orthinking esistance.Hebdige'shapternpunkandhisreadingfSidVicious penedntoanumberof differenttopics hat heclass onsidereduitecarefully.Notably,weexaminedthis notionthatresistanceakesplaceatthepointof representations:hemovie

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about Sid Vicious'slife, Sid andNancy,was importantherepreciselyas a kind ofbelated and recuperative epresentationof Vicious's hiding in the light. Thestudentsseemedhighly attunedto the way in which subculturalrepresentationsbecomecommodified,andto thepossibility hat this commodificationneutralizesthem. The class found many instancesof this neutralization one AfricanAmericanstudentspokeat length about the way in which the image of NelsonMandela, he colors of Rastafarianism, ndto some extent rapmusichave all beencommodifiedand depoliticizedboth within and without the African Americancommunity.Central topics here-and ones that would laterbe picked up in relation toMythologieswere the negotiation and renegotiationof meaningswithin andbetweenparticulardiscourse,andthe processesby which thosemeaningsarecul-turallyhierarchized.Here we found useful Bourdieu'sargumentabout theway inwhich culturalobjectsare involved in the productionof a formationof tastewhich is stratifiedaccording o classformations.We discussedBourdieu'snotionof culturalcapital -which was unfamiliarto most of the students in thiscourse, even though it has become a piece of the vernacularor most LCS stu-dents. One of the importantuses of the term in this context is not only that itenables discussionof class in terms of culturalphenomena,but that it remainscloselyalliedto waysof thinkingculture n termsof economics;thatis, it remainsclose to a Marxist tradition and underscores he necessityof understanding henatureof capitalism's olein theproductionof our cultures.Thisremains or me acrucialcomponent of culturalstudies.Bourdieu'sanalysis f tasteandclassworkedwell injuxtapositionwith Adorno'sattackon popularculture in PerrenialFashion-Jazz. Students seemedmuchmoresympathetic o Bourdieu hanIhadexpected, partlybecauseof theirdistasteforAdorno'sdismissive ones. But the two essays ogetherprovideda conflictualframefor wide-ranging discussions about art and culturalvalues, the relationsbetween economicvalueandculturalvalues, nd aboutthenatureof consumerism.These issueswereof topical nterest n that we dealtwith thematthesametime asthe Cincinnati Art Museum was being tried for exhibiting Robert Mapple-thorpe's photographs. Also, these texts were being read in conjunction withHebdige'sessayson taste, on the genealogyof the scootercycle, andon the aes-thetics of pop art.It would have been simpleto let discussionsof that sort segueinto the discus-sionof postmodernism hatendedthe course.But my own predilectionsed meto insistthat we spendmore time thinkingaboutAdorno'swork, following thatup with Benjamin's Work of Art . .. essay. My aimhere was to use thosetwotexts to reaffirmat least a couple of things that I think are criticalfor culturalstudies o foreground:a) the relationof cultural tudies theoryto its own his-toryin the Marxisttradition;andb) a dialecticalmode of analysis thatI think iswell representedn Adorno but which the studentsrelated o morenearly n Ben-jamin). The half-semester nded with a lengthy discussionabout the relation of



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culturalhange nd heassumptionndreassumptionf culturaltyles ohistori-calcrisesn capitalismnd tsprocessesf creativeestruction. 7Afterthe midterm reakwe turnedourattentiono Barthes'sMythologies.goodlynumber f his ittleanalysesfculturalbjects ndhisessay nthe inguis-tic paradigmsnderpinningtructuralisthinkingwere discussed istorically.That s,Bartheseemsusefulnthiskindofcourse,notjusttoprovide ngrossingandprovocativenalyses,ut alsoasarepresentativeothofaparticular omentinthehistoryof culturaltudies heoryandof aparticular omentn the his-toryoflatecapitalism. arthes'snvestigationf thefirst ideofconsumeristrti-facts ntroducedhequestion f theperiodizationf postmodernism:ow, thatis, postmodernismhouldbe defined-as something esultingroma funda-mental hift n thenature f thecapitalistmodeofproduction,rsimply swhatonestudent alled anew and mprovedonsumerroduct. This sthepoint nthe coursewhereHebdige'sbook received he mostcriticism, tudentsbeingsomewhatessconvincedf the positive otentialities 217)ofpostmodernismthanhe.Thecritique fHebdige mergedargelyromacomparisonetweenhistreatmentf the rockmusicphenomenonf LiveAid concerts ndPaulGilroy'streatmentf similarssuesnhischapter n RockAgainstRacism. Hebdige'sfaith n postmodernist racticeeemederiouslyhreatenedy Gilroy'sarefulexplicating f thelogicof cultural ction.Iwanttotake omecreditorthestudents'nwillingnessnregardothemoreoptimisticiewsofthepolitics f postmodernism,incewe hadspentaconsid-erableamountof timediscussingmy own essay, Visiting heBananaRepub-lic - anessaywhichisby no manner f meansapaeano postmodernismrmanyofits theoretical iscourses. hatarticlewas ntended, owever,notjustasacounterowhatI tend o thinkofasthequietism fmuchdiscussionf post-modernism, ut alsoasawaytoopenoutsomeof thetheoreticalnd omeofthepracticalssuesof culturaltudies. That s to say,thearticlebothaffirmsheglobalconnections hatmust be thought through n relation o anyculturalobjectofstudy,andalsoreaffirmsheneed oranalysis roundednthehistory fmodesof production.Thisarticle roughtus near o the endof ourtime,thoughdiscussion f it ledinto someof the mostfree-wheelingonversationsn theclass notably roundthethen mpendingmperialistar ntheGulf.Italsoarticulatedomewhatwithpreviouslass essionsnquestionsfraceandracism, nd eminism ndsexism.Those atterssueswere nfactcontinuingmotifs hroughouthecourse nd heircentralitywasreflectedn mostof thefinalprojectshatthe students andedn.This hasbeen,of necessity,a somewhat actitiousnarrativef the course'sprogress, ndshouldperhaps e seenasnot muchmorethana partialinbothsenses f theword)glossof thesyllabus ffered bove.

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Student WorkThe studentshanded n aquite astonishingarrayof finalprojects,manyof themdone in collaborationwith at least one other person, andmany of them consti-

tuted in whole or in part by non-written submissions(art-work,videos, audiotapes).The topics coveredincludedthe following: rapmusic (two women stu-dents, one white, one AfricanAmerican, n aconflictualdialogue);ananalysisofthe media andgovernmentdiscourserationalizing he war in the PersianGulf;afeminist critique of Intelligence Testing; pornography(including a powerfulsuite of posters in BarbaraKruger style of picturesfromPenthouseoverprintedwith captions such as It is only deadflesh );an analysisof comix drawn andwrittenby women; acritiqueof ACT UP; a wonderfulsocialhistoryof the sportof wrestling in America;anexploration,via video, of the culturalproductionofblackmasculinity n America;and,inevitablyenough, areadingof theTeenageMutant Ninja Turtles.I was alittle surprisedhatthe students'chosentopicswerenearlyall concernedwith America and with contemporaryAmericaat that. On the otherhand,it'sthe case thatthroughoutthe course I hadcontinuallystressed hatthe placeof theobserverwas a crucialconsideration or culturalstudies, and so their firstpro-duction of themselves as culturalstudiers was perhapsbound to reflecttheirplace n theirown time andculture. I was struck, however, by the sophisticationandinsistence with which, for the most part, they markedand re-marked heir

own positionality,andby theemergence n theirwriting of a kindof self-reflexivehabitof thought which could almost be calleddialectical.Of course, thiskindofachievementwas unevenlyspreadacross he students,but what was strikingwasthe fact that nearlyall of them chose topics where they could eitheranalyzeanobjectof thedominantculturefrom the point of view of the resistance hatit dia-lecticallyinvokes, or explore a cultural formationor artifactwhich brought upquestionsof marginalityand the experienceof resistance.In nearlyall cases,thestudentwork alsoregistered he methodologicalnecessitythatI keptfoisting onthem:namely,the needforboth an economicand ahistoricalcomponentto theiranalyses.The degreeto which anyof the studentswasfinallycomfortablewith my claimthat the methodology of culturalstudies should be unsettled andunsettlingisunclearto me. But it seemsthe casethat a certainself-reflexiveness ecamepos-sibleforthemasthey produced hese finalprojects.Of course,it would be wrongfor me to end with any suchclaim aboutthe successof the course. The degreeofsuccess s stillnot clear o me, andanyway sprobablyn mostrespectsa matterforothers tojudge. Inanycase,I offerthisessaynot in order o propose hiscourseasin any way ideal.I mean t merelyas an instanceof whatmight get donein a cul-tural studies slot in the curriculum,as one empiricalanswerto the as yet un-answerablequestion What is culturalstudies?CarnegieMellon University



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Notes1. Richardohnson, What s Cultural tudies,Anyway?, ocialText6.1 (1987):38-80.2. We havealsooffered raduate egreesn LiteraryndCulturalTheory ince1986.3. GayatriChakravortypivak,nOtherWorlds(New York:Methuen,1987)117.4. PatrickBrantlinger, rusoe'sFootprintsNew York:Routledge,1990)16.5. ForourdiscussionftheNAS'sattack nthebynownotorious 306 oursen theUniversityfTexasEnglishDepartment, e relied naccountsiven n anAustin tudentnewspaper,olemicist2.1 (September990).Copiesof theirexcellentoverageanprobablytillbe had ora smalldona-tion fromPolemicist,04West24th,#28, Austin,TX 78705.6. DickHebdige,HidingntheLight New York:Routledge,1988)35.7. JosephSchumpeter, apitalism,ocialism,ndDemocracyNewYork:HarperndRow, 1942).

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