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“Cultural goods”: history, practices, institutions Graduate Course 2 credits Instructor: Alexandra Kowalski Department of Sociology and Anthropology Zrinyi Utca 14, # 407a
Description: This course proposes to explore the genesis and social history of what came to be called, in the late 20 th century: “cultural goods.” Cultural goods may be defined as symbols with an exchange value. Books, collectibles, art, architecture, landscapes, stories and histories, music, films, TV programs: diverse as they are, cultural goods share a common, if complex and layered, history of practice. Such is at least the hypothesis we will probe through readings and discussions. Through the centuries of modernity, cultural goods have been accumulated in cabinets, galleries and museums. They have been surveyed and investigated through catalogues and inventories. They have been traded on markets and through networks of merchants, scholars, collectors, diplomats and soldiers. They have been collected and looted through wars and conquests. They have been produced, preserved and de-commodified through national and international laws. They have been generated and transformed by social and intellectual movements. They have been diffused globally through “technologies of mechanical reproduction” in the network society. In brief, cultural goods are contested commodities which owe the particulars of their existence to complex forms of trade that make their participation in the history of capitalism at once evident, intensely complex and infinitely problematic. Learning Outcomes: -- Interdisciplinarity: What is historical sociology? -- Micro-macro link: What relationship between macro and micro levels of analysis does this approach suggest? -- Critical thinking: In what sense is this approach “critical”? -- Theoretical skills: What do the basic sociological concepts employed in the historical analysis of symbolic trade mean? These concepts include: cultural good, field/cultural field, cultural/symbolic capital; genesis/sociogenesis/genealogy; symbolic career; institution/organization/system and practice; structure and event, long-term and short term history. -- Substantive knowledge: What are the main institutions of and social dynamics at work in the production and circulation of cultural goods? What are the main turning points of their emergence and transformation through the modern and contemporary eras? Requirements and grading: -- Attendance, preparedness and participation: 15%. Only one unjustified absence will be authorized without penalty. The participation grade will be down-graded by one letter grade/additional day of absence. This include participation in additional sessions that may be scheduled for a 2 hour field trip (collection of erotica) and a film (Prize of the pole). -- One critical presentation of weekly readings, including questions for discussion: 25%. To be circulated by Friday of the preceding week. No extension granted. Late submissions will be down-graded by one letter grade/day. -- One final paper: either a research paper or a theoretical paper, depending on students’ project for the MA thesis. To be discussed with me. 60% of the grade. The paper is due on April 1. No extension will be granted. Late submissions will be down-graded by one letter grade/late day. NB 1: Changes may be made at any point to any part of this syllabus. NB 2: Students are held fully responsible for catching up with the content of the classes they miss. Class content includes substantive discussions but also specific directions re. readings or written assignments, as well as changes in the schedule of readings and activities.
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES AND READINGS 1. Introduction (Jan. 6) No reading required. The lecture will introduce the basic theoretical frames and readings, as well as next week’s readings. Lectures will generally deal with the following week’s readings. 2. Anthropology of collecting (jan 13) Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library,” from Illuminations, tr. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 59-67. James Clifford, "On Collecting Art and Culture," in The Predicament of Culture, Harvard UP, 1988. Charles Tashiro, “Contradictions of Video Collecting,” Film Quarterly 50.2 (Winter 1996-7), 11-18. 3. Cabinets of curiosities, taxonomy, science (jan 20) Michel Foucault, The order of things Krystof Pomian, Collectors and curiosities : Paris and Venice 1500-1800 Paula Findlen, “The Museum: Its classical epistemology and Renaissance genealogy” in Museum Studies: an Anthology of Contexts, Blackwell, 2004. II. Nations and museums: symbolics and politics of cultural trade 4. Birth of the Museum (jan 27) Carol Duncan and Alan Walace, “The Universal survey museum”, Art History, 3:4, 1980. Tony Bennett, “The formation of the museum”, “The exhibitionary complex” and “the political rationality of the museum” (Chap.1, 2, 3) in The Birth of the Museum. History, Theory, Politics, Routledge, 1995. Optional: Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public art museum Paul DiMaggio, “Cultural Entrepreneurship in 19 th-Century Boston, Parts 1 and 2.” Media, Culture and Society 4: 33-50 and 303-22. Nick Prior, Museums and Modernity: Art Galleries and the making of modern culture, Berg, 2002. Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures: Poetics and politics of museum display , Washington Smithsonian, 1991. 5. Collections in Place: Historic Preservation (feb 3) Francoise Choay, “Monument and historic monument” (Introduction) and “The consecration of the historic monument” (Chap.4) Invention of the historic monument David Lowenthal, The Past is a foreign country . 384-399 (Preservation), 148-182 (Appreciating the look of age) Laurajane Smith, “The Discourse of heritage” (Chap.1) and “Authorizing institutions of Heritage” (Chap. 3) in Uses of Heritage, Routledge, 2006. Optional: John Urry, The tourist gaze: leisure and travel in contemporary societies, Sage 1990. 6. Ambiguous Symbolic Career, Unambiguous Politics: Ethnographic objects (feb 10) Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, “Objects of ethnography” in Destination Culture. Tourism, Museums and Heritage, University of California Press, 1998 Sadiah Qureshi, “Displaying Sarah Bartman, the ‘Hottentot Venus’” in History of Science 42:2:136 (2004), 233-57 Film Screening: Staffan Julen,The prize of the pole (78 minutes, 2007) Optional readings: Timothy Mitchell, “ Egypt at the exhibition”, Chap. 1 of Colonizing Egypt, U of California Press 1988.. Dona Haraway, Primate visions, Routledge, 1989. Nadia Abu el Haj, Facts on the ground: Archeological practiceand territorial self-fashioning in Israeli society, University of Chicago Press 2001. 7. A dominant category of symbolic goods: “art” (feb 17) Pierre Bourdieu, “Manet” in The field of cultural production, 1993. Shelly Errington, "What Became Primitive art?" Cultural Anthropology 9 (2) : 201-226, 1994. Fred Myers, “Collecting Aboriginal art in the Australian Nation. Two Case Studies” Visual Anthropology Review Vol. 21, #1 and 2, pp. 116-137 (2006). 8. Dominated Symbolic Categories and Categories in the Making: of erotica, cult movies, intangibles and industrial heritage, for example (feb 24) Field trip in one of the many worlds of cultural distinction: Anthony Fekete gives us a tour of his collection of erotica—second, by size and quality, to the Vatican’s, and the most important private collection of its kind in the world. Readings : Jennifer Tyburczy (2008) “Perverting the Museum: The Politics and Performance of Sexual Artefacts” Mark Jancovich (2002) “Cult Fiction: Cult Movies, Subcultural Capital and the Production of Cultural Distinctions,” Cultural Studies 16.2: 306-322. Optional: Robert Lumley ed., The Museum Time machine, Routledge, 1988. Michael Rowlands, “Entangled memories and parallel heritages in Mali” in Dejong and Rowlands eds., Reclaiming heritage, Left Coast Press 2007. Ferdinand De Jong, “A masterpiece of Masquerading: contradictions of conservation in intangible heritage” in Dejong and Rowlands eds., Reclaiming heritage, Left Coast Press 2007. III. Cultural industries and global cultural trade 9. Context and problem of the cultural industries: political economy of information (March 3) Bob Jessop, “The State and the contradictions of the knowledge-driven economy” in Bryson et al. eds. Knowledge, state, economy, Routledge, 2001. Frow, J. (1996) 'Information as Gift and Commodity', New Left Review, 219, 89-108. Dawson , A.C. (1998) 'The Intellectual Commons: A Rationale for Regulation', Prometheus, 16 (3), 275-289. Michael Westerhaus and Arachu Castro (2006) “How do intellectual property law and international trade agreements affect access to antiretroviral therapy?” PLoS Med 3(8): e332. DOI: 10.1371/journal. pmed.0030332 **Discussion of final paper projects** 10. Popular reception of mass culture (March 10) Laurajane Smith, “Labour heritage: performing and remembering” (Chap. 6) in Uses of Heritage, Routledge, 2006. Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “From the Imperial Family to the Transnational Imaginary: Media Spectatorship in the Age of Globalization,” from Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary, ed. Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake ( Durham: Duke University Press, 1996 (145-170). Ien Ang, “ Dallas between reality and fiction” and “ Dallas and the ideology of mass culture” (Chap. 1 and 3) in Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination, tr. Della Couling, Methuen, 1985. 11. Liberalism vs. protectionism in the film industry: “cultural imperialism” vs. the “cultural exception” to commodity rule (march 17) Colleen Roach, "Cultural imperialism and resistance in media theory and literary theory." Media, Culture and Society, 19, 47-66. (1997) Toby Miller, “The crime of Monsieur Lang: GATT, the screen and the new international division of cultural labour” in Albert Moran ed., Film Policy, Routledge 1996, pp. 72-83. UNESCO documents about the traffic of knowledge and culture: --“ Florence agreement” on the traffic of educational, scientific and cultural material (1950) http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=12074&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html --Convention on cultural diversity (2005): http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31038&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html --“International flows of selected cultural goods and services, 1994-2003” Report of the UNESCO Institute for statistics: http://www.uis.unesco.org/template/pdf/cscl/IntlFlows_EN.pdf Supplementary with focus on the European Union: Christopher Gordon (2007) “Culture and the European Union in a global context” in Journal of arts management, law and society, Spring 2007, 11-30. Annabelle Littoz-Monet (2007) The European Union and Culture, Manchester UP. 12. Controversies over cultural objects: restitution and return of art works to their countries or owners “of origin” (date to be rescheduled) Emily Goldsleger, “Contemplating contradiction: a comparison of art restitution policies”, Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society Vol. 35 #2, 109-120 (2005) Olivier Amiel, “A Maori head: public domain? (Case note)” International Journal of Cultural Property (2008) 15:371-75. Alan Audi, “A Semiotics of cultural property argument” International Journal of Cultural Property (2007) 14:131-167. [followed by a debate] |