Cultural Studies In English Literature For UGC NET PDF

This article will cover the important Cultural Studies in English Literature notes along with some important personalities who are related to it. 

If you are pursuing Masters or Doctorate in English Literature, or are preparing for competitive exams like UGC NET, then this article is a must-read for you. 

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What Is Cultural Studies In Literature?

Cultural Studies in English Literature or any other literature refer to an academic discipline in which several disciplines like sociology, political economy, literary theory, philosophy, film studies, media theory, communication, history, criticism, etc are combined to study the cultural phenomena of different societies. 

These studies are used to understand how different phenomena related to matters of nationality, ideology, social class, ethnicity, and gender. 

There are different meaningful artifacts of culture constituted in the texts of cultural studies. 

There are several critical approaches that are politically engaged that are included in cultural studies. These include

1. Marxism

2. Literary Theory

3. Media Theory

4. Communication Studies

5. Art History/Criticism

6. Museum Studies

7. Translation Studies

8. Film/Video Studies

9. Semiotics

10. Critical Race Theory

11. Feminist Theory

12. Critical Race Theory

13. Social Theory

14. Post Structuralism

15. Post-Colonialism 

16. Philosophy

17. Political Theory

18. History 

19. Ethnography

20. Political Economy

All these approaches are engaged to study the cultural phenomena in different societies as well as different periods throughout history. 

Characteristics Of Cultural Studies In Literary Criticism

1. Cultural Studies are used to examine cultural practices and as well as their relation with power. 

2. They help in understanding the different forms of culture to analyze the social and political context of cultural manifestation. 

3. Cultural study is a site of study and political criticism, or analysis and action. 

4. Cultural Studies aims at exposing and reconciling the divided knowledge which profess to be grounded in nature. 

5. Cultural Studies does an ethical evaluation of modern society. 

Check out the Syllabus for UGC NET English Literature 2023

Important People Related To Cultural Studies In English Literature For UGC NET

John Fiske

• Media Scholar
• Professor of Communication of Arts: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Areas of interest: Cultural Studies, Popular Culture, Media Semiotics, Television Studies

Important books written by John Fiske are 

1. Power Plays, Power Works (1933)
2. Understanding Popular Culture (1989)
3. Reading the Popular (1989)
4. Television Culture (1987)

Richard Hoggart

• Author and Teacher
• Served in British Army during WW2
• First Book: A study of W.H. Auden’s poetry (1951)
• Major work: The Uses of Literacy (1957)
• Founder of the “Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies” (1964) 
• Assistant Direct-General of UNESCO

Stuart McPhail Hail

• British Marxist sociologist, cultural theorist, political activity
• One of the founding figures of British Cultural Studies or The Birmingham School of Cultural Studies
• Founder of the influential “New Left Review
• Involved in the Black Arts Movement
• Mostly focuses on hegemony and cultural studies
• Wrote the paper “Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse”

Important works of McPhail Hall: 

1. The Hard Road to Renewal (1988)
2. Formations of Modernity (1992)
3. Questions of Cultural Identity (1996)
4. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997)

Raymond Henry Williams

• Marxist theorist, academic, novelist, and critic
• Published the book “Culture and Society” in 1958
• Known for his Cultural Materialism 
• Developed the concept of “Structure of Feeling”
• Left-wing critic
• Founder of New Left Review

Important Novels of Raymond Williams

1. Border Country
2. Second Generation
3. The Fight for Manod
4. Loyalties
5. People of the Black Mountains

Important literary works of Ramond Williams

1. Culture and Society
2. The Long Revolution
3. Drama from Ibsen to Elliot
4. The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence
5. The Country and the City
6. Television: Technology and Cultural Form
7. Keywords
8. Marxism and Literature
9. Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays
10. Writing in Society

Antonio Gramsci 

• Known for his theory of Cultural Hegemony
• Coined the term Subaltern

Important collections of Antonio Gramsci:

1. Pre-Prison Writings
2. The Prison Notebooks
3. Selections from the Prison Notebooks

Important essays of Antonio Gramsci

1. Newspapers and the Workers
2. Men or Machines? 
3. One Year of History 

Cultural Studies In English Literature MCQs

1. Who coined the term Cultural Studies?

Richard Hoggart (1964)

2. Which was the world’s first center of Cultural Studies?

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham.

3. Which university offered the first stand-alone interdisciplinary Ph.D. in cultural studies in the US?

George Mason University

4. Who is known for his Cultural Materialism?

Raymond Williams

5. Who developed the concept of Structure of Feeling?

Raymond Williams

6. Who is considered a left-wing critic?

Raymond Williams

7. Which form of Literary Studies is named after F.R. Leavis?

Leavisism 

Final Words
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