Ongoing theorizing, not finished Theory, is what Cultural Studies requires
Evidence
I am not interested in Theory, I am interested in going on theorizing. And that also means that Cultural Studies has to be open to external influences, for example, to the rise of new social movements, to psychoanalysis, to feminism, to cultural differences. Such influences are likely to have, and must be allowed to have, a strong impact on the content, the modes of thought and the theoretical problematics being used. In that sense, Cultural Studies cannot possibly thrive by isolating itself in academic terms from those external influences. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 756
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- XREF: Contrasts with the ‘high Theory’ moment of 1980s-90s literary studies; connects to Hall’s insistence on conjunctural, open-ended thinking.
Related
- Cultural Studies must balance holding a position with open-ended ongoing theorizing. (similarity 0.94)
- Cultural Studies must remain permanently open-ended and responsive to external influences (similarity 0.90)
- Intellectual projects must balance committed positions with open-ended theorizing (similarity 0.85)
- Abstracted theory that loses local situatedness betrays Cultural Studies’ core method. (similarity 0.85)
- Cultural Studies theory advances through rupture and exterior interruption, not internal unfolding. (similarity 0.85)
- Excessive theorizing can empty power of its material exercise (similarity 0.85)
- Cultural Studies engaged Marxism through its omissions, not its established doctrines. (similarity 0.84)
- Fields advance through exterior ruptures, not smooth internal accumulation. (similarity 0.82)
- Accessible scholarship must still produce genuinely new knowledge, not confirmatory slogans. (similarity 0.82)
- Cultural Studies’ identity lies in an unresolved tension between theory and politics (similarity 0.82)
- Paradigm shifts are never complete breaks but preserve prior positions in new form. (similarity 0.81)
- The culturalist paradigm is essentializing despite rejecting Hegelian essence-seeking. (similarity 0.81)
- Cultural Studies and Marxism never had a perfect theoretical fit (similarity 0.81)
- Cultural Studies history is interrupted by exterior forces, not unfolded internally (similarity 0.81)
- Over-theorizing power as textuality can empty it of real political meaning (similarity 0.81)
Broader Connections
- Abstracted theory that loses local situatedness betrays Cultural Studies’ core method.
#corroborates(0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 129 - Economic-reductionist cultural theory stays trapped at an epochal level of abstraction
#corroborates(0.60) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 206