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Panopticon's Subject Index Ee
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E
Economics and cultural theory
Encoding-Decoding
Enlightenment
Existentialism
Expressionism
Under construction at present (typical of economics, eh?) but could become a special topic sometime in the future.
Basically, though, cultural and critical theory is very closely bound up with the capitalist economic system.
See also:
~~~~~~~~~~ Stuart Hall developed a theory of text which allowed for a measure of "negotiated" or "oppositional" readings of the text by the audience. In particular he proposed a model of encoding-decoding of media discourses. In this the meaning of the text, which is located somewhere between its producer and the reader, is framed (or encoded) by the producer in a certain way, and the reader decodes the text's message slightly differently, according to his/her personal background, and the various different social situations and frames of interpretation. (Denis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction.).
~~~~~~~~~~ A European cultural movement that reached its height in the 18th century, but which still resonates today. Enlightenment theories about economics and philosophy (see core concepts), still widely held today, have provided the basis for numerous critiques from numerous critics, including members of the Frankfurt school and most of the leading French thinkers of modern and postmodern eras.
Characteristics of the Enlightenment:
1) Reason should control your actions, not dogma. Don't believe something just because it's traditional.
2) Doubt everything, lead to Locke's concept of political rights.
3) Linked to development of modern science, e.g., Immanuel Kant.
4) Important figures - Descartes, John Locke, Leibnitz, John Stuart Mill, David Hume, Adam Smith, John Milton.(Related) Classical liberal notion of society:
- Society made up of Rational Individuals
- Exercising free will, reason
- "Natural Rights" (human rights)
- Working together to make society work ("social contract")
- Progressive impulse; optimistic about future
- Individuals have control over future
Perhaps the archetypical expression of the classical liberal notion of society is in the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident.that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
*** The Enlightenment defined and celebrated modern ideas about reason and rationalism***
See also:
~~~~~~~~~~ I.What is existentialism?
Well, it's a view of the world that exaggerates the role of the self in everything. It's an attitude of self-consciousness; "One feels himself separated from the world, from other people. In isolation, one feels threatened, insignificant, meaningless, and in response demands significance through a bloated view of the self" (Solomon, Existentialism, p. xi). However, existentialism is not the same as solipsism, which is a belief that you can't trust the reality of anything outside your body (a bit like a skeptic, only more extreme, because solipsists doubt the validity of everything, not just the nature of truth). Existential philosophy still accepts outside reality, even though that reality is fundamentally alienating to the individual. Adherents include Soren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre.
II.How is existentialism different from poststructuralism?
At first sight they seem very similar, in that both address the lack of true meaning, and the absence of the "real", in the universe. However, Poststructuralism also emphasizes the "decentered" nature of life (i.e., since everything exists only in relation to everything else, there can be no "center"). Existentialism, by contrast, still recognizes the center. Thus, e.g., for Jameson, the subject in a postmodern world is not alienated, but rather fragmented. "Alientation presumes a central, unitary self . . . [b]ut if, as a postmodernist sees it, the self is decentered and multiple, the cocept of alienation breaks down. All that is left is the anxiety of identity" (Turkle, 1995: 49).
~~~~~~~~~~ A European artistic and cultural movement that reached its height in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Expressionism was a major outgrowth of the modernist movement in Europe. Expressionist work emphasized revulsion with the impersonal, routine, mechanical nature of modern urban and factory life (e.g., Fritz Lang's Metropolis), thus continuing an important aspect of romantic social thought. Unlike French montage, expressionist juxtaposition of images protested against the modern city and its mechanistic impulses.
Its major practitioners included Munch, Kandinsky, Kafka, Schoenberg, Beckmann, etc. "In the best expressionist work ... its strength lies precisely in the refusal of resolution, harmony, or easy comfort (a point Adorno was to emphasize in his praise of Schoenberg)" (Lunn, p. 62).
CT. Subject Index Ee
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Last Updated: mar 9 2001