What Counts as "Culture"

Blog article for the January 26, 2012 class: Birmingham Cultural Studies

This question is one of the most crucial questions the Birmingham Cultural Studies impose among themselves as they were building the foundations of the school.

The Birmingham theories had five main features which tries to define and point out what Culture is and generally explain what Birmingham is all about as a school of thought:

1. Interdisciplinary: This school looks at culture in different point of views from Post Modernism, Post Structuralism, Critical Theory and Feminist theory, which makes it interdisciplinary. 

2. Culture has a wide definition: Culture cannot be defined as easy as one-two-three! It consists of complicated sub-subjects such as identity, values, behavior, and the like. If cannot have a single simple definition because it is a complicated ensemble of learned experiences, further developing and increasing both in quantity and in quality.

3. Rejects High VS Low Culture Distinctions: The theorists of the Birmingham school did not believe that there is actually a distinction between the High and Low Culture. They treat all the cultural expressions as the same height or depth. 

4. Culture is not stagnant wisdom, it is experienced and practiced: Culture cannot just be seen in artifacts and records from the past. Culture is experienced and practiced. It changes almost everyday, as people move, live and survive.

5. Gramsci and Althusser Inspired: Although these two theorists have opposing theories, they still serve as the most looked up to for the Burmingham school. Gramsci talked about cultural hegemony in a sense that it may be defined as an "organizing principle" internalized by the population While Althusser discussed relative autonomy and suggests that culture is detemined by economic forces.

Birmingham Cultural Studies affected the Humanities in ways more than one. First of all, it challenges the Western thought of values and philosophies. Because of this challenge, they then started to incorporate new philosophies and fields such as women's rights, minority rights and popular culture.

Birmingham culture definitely widened the world's take on culture.

♥ Reese Corpuz