The Explanation On The Early "Cultural Studies" Under The Modern Western Context

As a special term, "Cultural Studies" is now the focus, dominant words and important research paradigm in the international and domestic academia. "Cultural Studies" is not the general research on the culture, but the academic ideological trend and knowledge tradition, which was risen in Britain in the fifties and the sixties of the 20th century and gradually expanded to the world. As a kind of academic-political activity, "Cultural Studies" takes the social culture critique as its purpose and has several characteristics such as interdisciplinarity, practice and the participation in the politics. All these characteristics are associated very closely with the early "Cultural Studies", i.e. British Cultural Studies. So, the paper tries to put the clue of the early "Cultural Studies" in order by the explanation on it, which will help us understand the dazzling "Cultural Studies" nowadays.This paper consists of four chapters.The first chapter "the dimension of 'culture': the modernity context of the rise and development of 'Cultural Studies' " analyses the cultural anxiety and crises in the modernity context from the angle of time. The spontaneous cultural revolt in "May Storm" and the self-conscious cultural critique of those many ideologists both embody the concern about the human existing circumstances. This shows us the dimension of "culture" which acts as a kind of paradigm. Therefore this part relatively roundly describes the whole modernity context of the rise and development of "Cultural Studies".The second chapter "the origin of 'Cultural Studies'" traces it back on the clues of both political tradition and idealistic tradition. From the political tradition, we can see that "Cultural Studies" is associated very closely with the British New Left. In order to analyse the new social circumstances of the capitalism, the New Left commit themselves to participate in the politics. And this has influenced the subsequent development of "Cultural Studies" deeply. The adult education and its academic achievement that were undertaken by the New Left in the fifties and the sixties also motivate the rise of "Cultural Studies". So "Cultural Studies" is characteristic of thepolitical critique. The tradition of "Culture and Society" and several key figures in "Cultural Studies" are the clues of the idealistic tradition. To some extent, the British Cultural Studies which was initiated by Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart and E .P.Thompson is the development of the tradition of "Culture and Society" which has Matthew Arnold, T 'S 'Eliot and F .R.Leavis as its representatives. And the former who put away the latter's position of elitism discuss the mutual relationship between society and many new cultural phenomena under the new afterwar context. The development of the tradition of "Culture and Society" will be expatiated thoroughly in this part.The third chapter "the two paradigms and their development of the early 'Cultural Studies'" analyses the two dominant paradigms, i.e. the paradigm of culturalism and the paradigm of structuralism. The former will be explained by emphasizing the cultural theory of Raymond Williams. And the latter will be explained by tracing it back on the clue of the structuralism's development in it. First Ferdinand de Saussure put forward the semeiology, then Claude Levi-Strauss took use of his philological paradigm, and Roland Barthes analysed French popular culture also by using his semeiology. At last L. Althusser's theory directly motivated the change of paradigm from "culturalism" to "structuralism". According to the defects of both paradigms, the theory of Antonio Gramsci made it possible to exceed the two poles and motivated "Cultural Studies" develop further.The forth chaper "the academic track of the early 'Cultural Studies'" describes the problems that the early "Cultural Studies" concern about. They include the cultural study on the working class in fifties and sixties , the cultural study on the media and the subculture of youth in seventies, and the study on both gender and race...