Deck 7: Cultural Studies and Cultural Theory

Question 1

Cultural studies has been part of an effort to tear down boundaries between the social sciences and:

A) Natural sciences
B) Politics
C) Humanities
D) Capitalism

Answer 1

C

Question 2

The theorist who gave sociological breadth to cultural studies is:

A) Stewart Hall
B) Stewart Little
C) Michel Foucault
D) Herbert Blumer

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Stewart Hall helped to found which influential journal?

A) The New American Statesman
B) The New Left Review
C) The National Review
D) The Nation

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Hall drew on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci, who felt that

A) Ownership of the means of production allowed for domination
B) Modern media allowed for social fragmentation
C) The neoliberal state created new opportunities for domination
D) Elites imposed their cultural values on others in order to dominate them

Question 5

For Hall, popular culture

A) Was an integral part of hegemonic domination, and created false consciousness among the masses
B) Was insignificant. Domination occurred in the economic realm
C) Was a potential generator of resistance among the dominated
D) Was a coping mechanism that allowed the masses to tolerate hegemony

Question 6

The idea that common people are able to actively and creatively construct meaningful common practices that create popular culture is known as:

A) Culturalism
B) Humanism
C) Activism
D) None of the above

Question 7

"Theorizing," according to Hall, is:

A) The process of creating generalizable abstractions
B) The application of theory to something or somewhere
C) The dialectical process of cultural construction
D) Part of the scientific method

Question 8

Raymond Williams constructed timelines of English ________ to document cultural changes

A) Films
B) Literary figures
C) Political figures
D) Cuisine

Question 9

Raymond Williams was chiefly concerned with the relationship between

A) Culture and production
B) Production and ideology
C) Culture and ideology
D) Ideology and class-consciousness

Question 10

Cultural materialism refers to:

A) An understanding of culture in terms of its underlying system of production
B) Artifacts and other tangible aspects of culture
C) The desire to acquire cultural goods, like works of art, for their economic value
D) The relationship of the system of production to class consciousness

Question 11

The way in which we see things from the vantage point of our culture at a given place in time is called

A) Standpoint theory
B) Ideology
C) Structure of feeling
D) Viewpoint theory

Question 12

For Angela McRobbie, the study of gender, especially young women and girls, focused on

A) The domestic division of labor
B) The messages in magazines
C) Schooling and classroom dynamics
D) Playground friendship networks

Question 13

Neoliberalism has created a situation in which

A) Women are oppressed at home and bear the brunt of domestic responsibilities
B) Women are discredited as political actors
C) Women have made great advances in the world of work
D) Women are seen as free to construct themselves.

Question 14

Angela McRobbie defines the "postfeminist masquerade" as

A) The advances in civil and economic rights attained by women after the second wave of feminism
B) The lip service paid to women's rights by male politicians
C) Women assuming the role of having attained power so as not to offend those denying it to them
D) None of the above

Question 15

Terry Eagleton applied Marxist concepts to a critique of

A) Popular culture
B) Literary icons
C) Capitalism
D) Production

Question 16

For Eagleton, ideology is

A) A tool of the dominant classes
B) Ubiquitous, as every group has an ideology
C) Meaningless
D) Over

Question 17

Frederic Jameson views postmodernism as being characterized by

A) Depthlessness, or a culture of form over substance
B) Depth, or a culture of substance over form
C) Derivation, or a culture derived from other, related cultures
D) Deception, or a culture meant to pacify the masses

Question 18

Which of the following historical events is central to Paul Gilroy's Black Cultural Studies agenda?

A) Sharecropping
B) Jim Crow and the Black Codes
C) Emancipation
D) The Transnational Slave Trade

Question 19

For Ien Eng, global popular culture, like the worldwide TV soap opera hit Dallas

A) Is a tool of Western imperialism
B) Creates a false notion of Western, particularly American, lifestyles in the rest of the world
C) Creates pleasure for those who watch it
D) None of the above

Question 20

On the whole, a dominant theme in cultural studies is the idea that

A) Culture is the same as ideology
B) Culture is a tool used by dominant classes to maintain their domination
C) Culture is pleasurable
D) Culture is something that people actively participate in creating

Question 21

Cultural studies is criticized for exaggerating the boundaries between the social sciences and humanities

Question 22

Stuart Hall viewed popular culture as the "opiate of the masses."

Question 23

What is the "postfeminist age?"

Question 24

How is the postmodern era characterized by "depthlessness?"

Question 25

What are two differences between high culture and popular culture?

Question 26

What is ideology? How is it related to culture?

Question 27

How is culture related to power? IN what ways it is a tool used by elites to maintain their power? How is it used in resistance? Which explanation to you find most plausible, and why?

Question 28

How are cultural studies and Marxism related? How do they differ? Does the discipline of cultural studies represent a break from Marxism, or just an extension?