Blog article for February 6, 2012: French Cultural Studies
Out of the five main theorists we discussed in class, I chose to further discuss my favorites in my blog. The ideas which these three theorists introduced to me were remarkable for me.
Out of the five main theorists we discussed in class, I chose to further discuss my favorites in my blog. The ideas which these three theorists introduced to me were remarkable for me.
Fernand Braudel
Source: Google Images
In Braudel's book, The Mediterannean (1949), he argued that History should not be viewed only as a single narrative account unfolding in a single life span because history is a progressive story happening in different places to different subjects at the same time. According to Braudel, there are three types of time.
- Geographical Time - long-term relationship of humans and environment
- Social Time - long-term course of human institutions and attitudes
- Individual Time - short-term experiences of the individual and groups of their immediate natural, social and historical environments.
(c) Reese Corpuz
Braudel also believes in the concept of Everyday Life. He believes that everything happens in our "everyday lives" as it is the most basic site of experience and argues that this so-called "everyday life" must be considered in order to identify the norms. He also stressed that in identifying the norms, one should not look at the lives of the elite for they constitute very little of the population and their actions and experiences in their own "everyday lives" are very much different from the greater population - the commoners.
Together with other historians and philosophers, Braudel formed the Annales School of Historiography which emerged before the second World War. The School gained momentum right after WWII as it opposed the prevailing positivist orientation of French historiography. The Annales theorists rejected the sequential narrative model of viewing and writing history.
Fernand Braudel was one of the pioneers of the Annales School of Historigraphy.
PERSONAL INSIGHT: Braudel made me actually understand further how we should rightly view history. He made me question what were the origins of history, who were behind the idea of recording events and practices. He also made me more conscious about Time. Thanks to him, I view time now not as a single entity in a singular linear momentum, rather a multiple and multi-linear one. It amazes me how me, as a single entity in this world, can actually experience several types of time.
Henri LeFebvre
Source: Google Images
LeFebvre introduced the concept and ideology of Consumerism through the analysis of the Quotidian in his book Everyday Life in the Modern World in 1967.
- Quotidian - Everyday life as it is experienced and lived in modern societies defined by recurring routines of labor and leisure.
- Consumerism - Drove expansion of mass culture in industrial societies by deeply penetrating everyday life, affecting every aspect of existence and thus becoming a natural occurrence.
PERSONAL INSIGHT: LeFebvre further explained to me how the idea of consumerism emerged in our society. By studying the Quotidian, LeFebvre was able to pin-point several norms or common practices and from which emerged the idea of consumerism. For me, it is only necessary that society understands what consumerism is before being able to properly "do it". He gave everyone sort of guidelines and his theories served as models or somehow basis for understanding and analyzing the behavior of consumerism these days. Such research on a very practical yet extremely familiar and close to our hearts subject definitely made LeFebvre more interesting to me.
Michel de Certeau
Source: Google Images
Michel de Certeau argues that the central problem of the late capitalist society was that consumption has become a form of production. He believes that it is the mass' way of revolting against the elites. It is their Tactic against the original plan.
(c) Reese Corpuz
The tie-dyed shirts, grunge up pants and low riders are just some of the examples of Tactical Resistance which de Certeau studied in his book The Practice of Everyday Life (1984). Mass produced commodities are transformed into cultural forms that oppose the dominant culture that produced them. Suppliers tend to produce products which serve different purposes, look differently, appear varied and might even be biologically or chemically altered from its original stand point possibly as a reaction to the overtly dominating cultures.
In the article Culture and Critique by Jere Paul Surber, the main example used to explain this phenomenon was the emergence of modern day malls. If you analyze the reason behind the construction and the sole purpose of existence of these modern malls, you will understand in an instant that they were built to sell products at a large population and to earn heaps of cash. However, society came up with a tactical resistance move which does not necessarily contributes to the mall owners' main goal for its space. Some people use malls as meet-up or hang-out places, they somewhat abuse the venue to satisfy their personal goals and objectives and does not contribute to the mall's financial income because they do not buy anything. Some people even oppose the main goal of the establishment of malls as they use the venue to earn cash for themselves. An example might be a beggar, roaming around the common areas of the malls, asking each mall patron for some change. This beggar does not contribute to the mall's income growth and at the same time even cost the mall some "damages" as the beggar might scare off or turn off patrons who were originally possibly interested in actually buying something from the mall.
PERSONAL INSIGHT: The lessons presented to us by Michel De Certeau were extremely helpful as I am sure pretty much all of us could relate to it. I enjoyed de Certeau's direct and simple manner of explaining his theories because I find it refreshing and fitting because afterall he analyzes direct and simple subjects.
♥ Reese Corpuz
No comments:
Post a Comment