On Lawrence Grossberg’s Rock Culture Studies

With the development of Cultural Studies, rock culture studies have become onefield which is taking greater and greater importance. Lawrence Grossbergs is theleading figure of the emergence and rising of Cultural Studies in America and also themain scholar of rock culture studies. He has exerted great influence on and made greatcontribution to America’s cultural studies. By adopting the researching method ofmultiple perspectives and interdiscipline, he has reinterpreted rock culture, and formed aflexible and systematic theoryThis paper will firstly introduce the social background, main characteristics, andtheory used for decoding rock culture. Rock culture is contextualized in the postwarsocial background and postmodern social background, characterized by the symbol ofyouth and the representation of postmodernity, and decoded by subculture andpostmodern theory. Then this paper will analyze Grossberg’s rock culture theories,including the four historical conditions of rock’s possibilities, affect theory and rockapparatus theory. The affect theory points out the main factor of the operation of rock,providing a flexible concept for a detailed interpretation of the work of rock. Rockapparatus clarifies the context of rock’s operation, indicates its affective sites, andillustrates by what means and in what context dose rock empowers and is empoweredby its audience. Moreover, based on Grossberg’s theory, this paper will further explorethe social influence on rock, analyze the current state of rock culture and predict itsfuture with combination with the realistic text. Finally, it tries to make a judgment onthe contributions and limitations of Grossberg’s rock culture studies. AlthoughGrossberg’s rock culture studies is too abstract, its illustration about the function of rockand roll is difficult to define, and pays no attention the factors of gender and race whichhas taken great importance in the whole Cultural Studies, however, his studies offersreinterpretation of rock culture, provides a new researching method for popular culturestudies, and makes great contribution to Cultural Studies.In current society, culture is taking more and more importance, in this context, aresearch on Lawrence Grossberg’s rock culture studies could not only deepens our realization of popular culture, but also enables us to learn from and absorb exoticculture based on critics, which might in turn improve the development of China’sculture studies quickly and healthily.