The sometimes overrated “crisis in cultural studies” may be to some extent self-inflicted. The authors outline the transformation of the moral or ethical origins of cultural studies as those of what was essentially a research project, into the instrumentalist routines of an academic bureaucracy. Because these developments arise largely from the failure of the political Left to accommodate the collapse of the Cold War ideological stand-off, it is suggested that cultural studies has in many ways become something of an intellectual commodity that informs reactionary agendas equally, as well as those claiming to be Progressive. The article proposes an elaboration of the concept of Dynamic Justice, as developed by Agnes Heller (1987), as the grounds for recovering cultural studies’ earlier research impetus.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aldridge, M. (1997). Consciousness, culture and creativity: Harmonizing the techno-culture interface. Master’s thesis, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. Retrieved from www.nu.ac.za/ccms/publications/matheses_default.asp
2.
Berger, G. (2001). Problematising race for journalists: Critical reflections on the South African Human Rights Commission inquiry into media racism. Critical Arts, 15(1/2), 69-96.
3.
Braude, C. (1999). Cultural bloodstain: Towards an understanding if the legacy of apartheid and the perpetuation of racial stereotypes in the contemporary South African media. Research report commissioned by the South African Human Rights Commission. Pretoria RSA: SA Human Rights Commission.
4.
Diop, C. A. (1974). The African origin of civilization: Myth or reality (M. Cook, Trans.). New York: Lawrence Hill.
5.
Furedi, F. (2002). Culture of fear: Risk taking and the morality of low expectation. London: Continuum International.
6.
Furedi, F. (2003). Therapy culture: Cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age. London: Routledge.
7.
Gilgen, P. (1998). Supermarkt de bergriffe: Die amerikanischen Univesitat im Zeichen der globalisierung, FAZ, 27.5 (121), 5. Cited in Horn, P. (1999) An untimely question: What is and to what end do we study literature at a university?, Pretexts, 8(1), 81-87.
Hall, S. (1981). Cultural studies: Two paradigms. In T. Bennett, G. Martin, C. Mercer, & J. Woollacott (Eds.), Culture, ideology and social process (pp. 19-37). London: Batsford.
10.
Heller, A. (1987). Beyond justice. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
11.
Johnson, R. (1979). Histories of culture/theories of ideology: Notes on an impasse. In M. Barrett, P. Corrigan, A. Kuhn, and J. Woldd, (Eds.), Ideology and Cultural Production. Croom Helm: London, 49-77.
12.
Johnson, R. (1979). Three problematics: Elements of a theory of working class culture. In T. Clarke, C. Critcher, & R. Johnson (Eds.), Working class culture: Studies in history and theory (pp. 238-253). London: Hutchinson.
13.
Khiabany, G. (2003). De-westernizing media theory, or reverse Orientalism: “Islamic communication” as theorized by Hamid Mowlana. Media, Culture and Society, 25, 291-313.
14.
Kimball, R. (2000). Experiments against reality: The fate of culture in the postmodern age. Chicago: Ivan R Dee.
15.
McChesney, R. (1996). Is there any hope for cultural studies? The Democratic Communiqu, 14(2), 12-16.
16.
MMP(Media Monitoring Project) 1999, The news in black and white: An investigation into racial stereotyping in the South African media. In SAHRC Report, November 2000.
17.
Mowlana, H. (1997, November 19-21). Islamising the media in a global era: The state-community perspective in Iranian broadcasting. In K. Robins (Ed.), Programming for people: From cultural rights to cultural responsibilities (United National Television Forum, New York). Report presented by RAI-Radiotelevisione Italiana. Rome, Italy.
18.
Mudrooroo. (1996). Maban reality and shape-shifting the past: Strategies to sing the past our way. Critical Arts, 10(2), 1-40.
19.
O’Regan, T. (1998). Thinking about policy utility. Some aspects of Australian cultural policy development in a South African context. Critical Arts, 12(1/2), 1-23.
20.
Peirce, C. S. (1992). Evolutionary love. Reprinted in N. Houser and C. Kloesel (Eds.), The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings (Volume 1 - 1893-1913) (pp. 352-371). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
21.
Peirce, C. S. (1998). Immortality in the light of synechism. In Peirce Edition Project (Eds.), The essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings: Vol. 1. 1893-1913 (pp. 1-3). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
22.
Roome, D. (1999). Global versus local: “Audience-as-public” in South African situation comedy. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2(3), 307-328.
23.
Ruddock, A. (1998). Doing it by numbers. Critical Arts, 12(1/2), 115-137.
24.
Rundell, J., & Mennell, S. (1998). Introduction. In J. Rundell & S. Mennell (Eds.), Classical readings in culture and civilization. London: Routledge.
25.
Sokal, A., & Bricmont, J. (1998). Fashionable nonsense: Postmodern intellectuals’ abuse of science. New York: St. Martin’s.
26.
Thompson, E. P. (1965). The making of the English working class. London: Gollancz.
27.
Tomaselli, K. G. (2001). Cultural studies as “psycho-babble”: Post lit-crit, methodology and dynamic justice. Communicatio, 27(1), 44-57.
28.
Williams, R. (1973). The country and the city. London: Chatto & Windus.
29.
Williams, R. (1989). The politics of modernism: Against the new conformists. In T. Pinkney (Ed.), Collected essays, p. 158. London: Verso.
30.
Winch, P. (1958). The idea of a social science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
31.
Windschuttle, K. (1997). The poverty of media theory. Ecquid Novi, 18(1), 3-20.
32.
Worth, S., & Adair, S. (1975). Through Navajo eyes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
