Module 1 : . Introduction

Lecture 1 : Cultural Studies: An Introduction

Though critics point to the largely ‘textual' nature of Cultural Studies' methods, it is a rather narrow way of looking at the domain. Richard Johnson in his essay entitled “What is cultural studies anyway?” (1983) offers this defense: “‘The text' is no longer studied for its own sake, nor even for the social effects it may be thought to produce, but rather for the subjective or cultural forms which it realises and makes available…The text is only a means in cultural studies; strictly, perhaps, it is a raw material from which certain forms …. But the ultimate object of cultural studies is not ... the text, but the social life of subjective forms at each moment of their circulation, including their textual embodiments.”