[csaa-forum] against national cult stud

[John Grech]

Hello Aren and anyone else whose following this thread,

Aren Aizura wrote

>Hi all,
>
>I've been reading this discussion with interest, and find myself wondering why
>the question has been framed in terms of 'Australian cultural studies' in the
>first place, as if it were necessary for cult stud to be iconised here as a
>national pastime with its own truly-Australian folk heroes.

It may interest you to know that the move to 
catagorise different forms of cultural studies 
practices according to geography are not unique, 
and can be found, to cite one example, Toby 
Miller's A Companion to Cultural Studies where 
you'll find a number of other writers, including 
Graeme Turner, writing about this in a section 
called "Part II: Places". This is not, in any 
way, to suggest that I necessarily agree with all 
that such writers argue. In this instant I have 
just adopted such discourses, as indeed, it 
framed this whole discussion.  In fact the 
division between Australian cultural studies and 
other regions was set up by the quote from Simon 
During which was included in Melissa Greg's 
original post. You may wish to recall that is was 
that post which started this discussion of. I'll 
quote During once again as it appears you havent 
read it.

"Nowadays Australian cultural studies is 
increasingly normalised, concentrating on 
cultural policy studies and, often uncritically, 
on popular culture and the media. Indeed it is in 
Australia that the celebration of popular culture 
as a liberating forceŠ first took off through 
Fiske and Hartley's contributions. The young 
populists of the seventies now hold senior posts 
and what was pathbreaking is becoming a norm. The 
readiness of a succession of Australian 
governments to encourage enterprise universities 
has empowered the old tertiary technical training 
departments in such areas as communications, 
allowing them to have an impact on more abstract 
and theorised cultural studies in ways that 
appear to have deprived the latter of critical 
force. Furthermore, the structure of research 
funding, which asks even young academics to apply 
for grants, has had a conformist effect. Perhaps 
Australian cultural studies offers us a glimpse 
of what the discipline would be like were it to 
become relatively hegemonic in the humanities."

-Simon During, Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction (2005) p.26


>What is the 'Western academic world'? Does such a thing exist except in the
>minds of quote unquote antipodean academics who 
>still feel the cultural cringe?
>In this framework, cultural studies itself is a product of a 'Western
>academic world'. (Untrue, to a point.) And in 
>this world, Australia is still the
>little brother of the giants, trying hard to 
>make itself relevant and carve out
>a niche of Australian-ness so it can distinguish itself, market itself?

No, not really, I am only speaking from the 
experiences that I myself have had, and I use the 
Western world as a way of indicating a set of 
geographies, that is all. This was clearly 
indicated in my post and the assumptions you are 
making about me or anyone else feeling a cultural 
cringe are purely that, your assumptions, which 
stand rejected. Again for your information, I 
wrote having spent some time living and working 
in Holland, which is not Australia, and it seems 
that distinguishing the places is one way of 
characterising different forms of practice which 
are or can be tied to the nature of culture 
within those places.


>  But this whole discussion has a really wrong note of
>  Anglocentric nationalism, which
>seems to be unaware that much of the most exciting
>work happening on this continent might not even consider a 'Western academic
>world' as the space in which it circulates. The 
>work I'm thinking of has little
>respect for
>those invisible geographical lines attaching Australia to the UK, the US, or
>Europe. It works from a different map.


I do not speak of how cultural studies is 
practiced in India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain or 
Portugal, or South Africa, because I have no 
experience of working in those places. If you 
wish to articulate your experiences of the places 
where you have worked, then do so. I promise I 
will not regard it as diminishing of the places 
you speak about.

cheers

John Grech
-- 

*****************
John Grech
Artist & Writer
*****************

On-line Projects:
Interempty Space : The Global City <http://www.jgrech.dds.nl>

Sharkfeed
<http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/25402/20020806/www.abc.net.au/sharkfeed/index.htm>

On-line Writing:
"Beyond the Binary: New Media and the Extended Body"
Mediatopia on-line exhibition and symposium
http://www.mediatopia.net/grech.html

"Empty Space and the City: The Reoccupation of Berlin"
Radical History Review
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/radical_history_review/v083/83.1grech.html
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