Introduction
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Cultural studies is a popular subject at many universities.
In the Dutch department at University College London, for instance,
there are a few cultural studies modules as part of the degree
course in Dutch. |
The concept cultural studies is rather complex. To begin with the word 'culture' itself
means different things to different people, such as great works of art
and literature, or works of popular culture, such as pop songs and soap
operas, or the way that particular groups of people live their everyday
lives. Generally, when you talk about cultural studies as a subject at
university it is not so much about another culture, but it has
more to do with a particular way of looking at the world in which people
live, and how and why people think, produce and do the things they think,
produce and do. So whereas a text about the Netherlands might give you
information about the structure of society, the kind of celebrations
the Dutch have, or what the dominant social issues are, in cultural studies,
we look at what meanings people attach to these issues. And as with the
word ‘culture’, ‘meaning’ is itself not a straightforward
concept. Words, for instance, have meanings, which you can find in a
dictionary, but words carry many other meanings because of the connotations
they have. Just think about the various connotations that the word ‘freedom’ conjures
up to you.
Clearly, language is an important aspect of cultural studies. People,
after all, give meaning to their lives through language, through the
texts they produce and read. And with ‘texts’, we do not
necessarily mean just written texts, but also spoken and visual texts,
such as conversations, TV programmes, films or posters. Texts can also
refer to events, such as football matches and the behaviour of fans.
In cultural studies we tend to look at ‘texts’ and try and
answer the question of what cultural meanings are created in these texts.
Frequently, people look at theories and concepts of power, politics,
ideology and knowledge to answer this question. In this taster we won’t
look at theories, but we will introduce one key concept in cultural studies:
that of representation.
Representations are made through material things, such as music, books,
TV programmes, newspapers and magazines, pictures, paintings and films.
They tell us how people see their world. Discovering meaning in a text
is a matter of interpretation, and interpreting is not an exact science.
Interpretation is dependent on the knowledge and experience you have
of the thing, e.g. Amsterdam, that is represented and also of different
kinds of representations, you would have seen or read in relation to
that. Often, it would seem that the way that something is represented,
for instance representing a young footballer that scores a few goals
at an international tournament as a hero, seems natural and obvious.
But the question you have to ask yourself is: is it so obvious? Maybe
it is in our own culture, but we can also imagine that there are cultures
or ways of thinking, in which the young football player will not be seen
as a hero until he has more experience, or has scored many more goals
in other tournaments, or unless he is, for instance, handsome, or married,
or the son of a well respected man.
So to get a taste of how this kind of cultural studies analysis works
you can now have a go yourself at looking at different ways that Amsterdam
is represented. We are not interested in what information you can learn
about Amsterdam (although you probably will learn new things
about Amsterdam), but in the different ways that this information is
presented to us. How do the texts disclose hidden meanings behind the
taken for granted ones, and how do they show different images and perspectives
of Amsterdam?
We have chosen fragments from three different texts, all relating to Amsterdam:
a tourist guide from the web, a popular song, and a short story. Each of
these texts is followed by questions for you to answer. We provide you
with some answers ourselves. However, our answers are not the one and only
correct answer. These answers are our interpretations.
Activity
Before you read these fragments, take a few moments to reflect on what
you know about Amsterdam and what kinds of 'images' you would
expect to find of Amsterdam? |
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>Read the first fragment.
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