Cultural Studies theory must descend from abstraction into concrete messy politics and power
Evidence
I’m dwelling on the “dirtiness” of it: the dirtiness of the semiotic game, if I can put it that way. I’m trying to return the project of Cultural Studies from the clean air of meaning and textuality and theory to the something nasty down below. This involves the difficult exercise of examining some of the key theoretical turns or moments in Cultural Studies. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 238
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes the Frankfurt School’s insistence that theory must grasp concrete social reality, and Horkheimer’s critique of pure contemplation; also prefigures Hall’s later work on articulation as theory engaged with conjuncture. — connects to: Contentious politics analysis must steer between abstraction and particularity — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 288; Cultural Studies’ identity lies in an unresolved tension between theory and politics — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 253; Ongoing theorizing, not finished Theory, is what Cultural Studies requires (+8 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Contentious politics analysis must steer between abstraction and particularity — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 288; Cultural Studies’ identity lies in an unresolved tension between theory and politics — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 253; Ongoing theorizing, not finished Theory, is what Cultural Studies requires (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Academic critique of cultural politics dismissed it as a substitute for practical politics
#complicates(0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2643