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[traductio]

Is anyone else reading -- or has anyone else read -- Lawrence Grossberg's Cultural Studies in the Future Tense? It has been my summer reading (well, part of it -- my wife things my "fun" books are a bit weird), and I've found it to be both exciting (more exciting than anything I have read in a long time, actually) and, at times, frustrating. I'd be interested to discuss it, if anyone else out there in foraland wants to.

[jessicaeberhard]

I am reading Gossberg's book with a graduate class right now. I share many of your feelings and would enjoy discussing the book.  What have been some of your primary responses to his claims?

[traductio]

Huh -- I didn't think anyone would ever respond. I don't have the book in front of me, and it was about three books ago that I read it (our semester started here two weeks ago and I'm teaching our graduate theory class, so I've been aggressively reading and re-reading a wide range of comm theory lately), so I hope you'll forgive the vagueness of these comments.

I thought that Grossberg's rehearsal of various perspectives in each chapter was tiresome, but the pay-off was always worth it once he got to his actual argument. My wife laughs at me for this, but his contextualization of the idea of conjuncture was one of the most intellectually stimulating analyses I'd read in a long time. (I'd have to go back and check my notes to remember exactly what piqued my interest.)

I was also struck by the conspicuously absent theorists -- basically, John Fiske and any of his students. Not that I'd include them (although I do like Fiske) -- reading recent work by some of Fiske's students, especially Henry Jenkins, has been a disappointing experience. Jenkins has lost any edge he might have had, and books like Convergence Culture seem to be shilling for Hollywood in ways that make me uncomfortable.

Your thoughts?

[whytriangles]

I'd start by reading his primer on Lacan, aptly titled How to Read Lacan. It's a short and rather straightforward read.

After that, watch the film he did titled A Pervert's Guide to Cinema.

Then decide if you wish to further pursue Zizek. There are numerous papers of his available online. Also worth looking him up on Youtube as he is a rather eccentric lecturer.

[whytriangles]

Great start by posting in the wrong thread. Hah.

[traductio]

Great start by posting in the wrong thread. Hah.

Hey -- it's more action than this thread has gotten since I started it. I'm not convinced jessicaeberhard wasn't trying to get out of reading Grossberg's book by getting me to give a quotable summary here.

[jessicaeberhard]

Now hold on there. That is quite a harsh criticism for a late response. I am terribly sorry; I should have checked back again sooner. I'll figure out the notifications sooner or later.

I am not quite as well read you as you are in the field; I cannot comment on the absence of John Fiske, for example, in Grossberg's discussions. But I also felt that, as brilliant as the book was at providing new theoretical frameworks/methodologies/tools (even to an extreme at times), it also seemed to ignore much of what is happening in the world now, particularly in the political context of the Middle East. So much of his book felt as though it were written pre-9/11. Perhaps this was reflected in his lack of discussion about new media as well.

I appreciated his historicization of cultural studies and the Birmingham school very much, and I identified strongly with his critiques of the field: lack of contextuality; overemphasis on popular culture without rigorous theory;the "rediscovery" of what we already know; focusing on an object rather than the opening it creates; theoretical determinacy, reductionism and mantra; our inability to "join into broader discussions"; the laziness of ready-made categories; convenient abstraction which allows for sloppiness; and many other issues which have long been the bane of CS.

And, in many cases, I was also exuberant about the new paths he blazes as alternatives to these old patterns. His articulation of Affect appears incredibly useful to our current pressure points. Conjunctural analysis, likewise, provides tools to image-in the many complex planes our current world has evolved with. But, at the same time, there were points where I felt that his own analysis would revert back to the very patterns he was calling the field to avoid.

For example, one of my favorite declarations is on page 133 where he says that "we have to find a way to hold a conversation that does not begin by dismissing the other discipline out of hand or that blames a particular discipline for the weaknesses of its interdisciplinarity. Such a conversation would require us to engage with economic paradigms more widely; we often justify not doing the work because so much of economics is too technical . . . but we do not look for the openings where conversation is possible." 

This clarion call had me scribbling happily along the margins; as a rhetoric scholar working in multiple disciplinary fields, I was ecstatic. But then, in the same chapter, he criticises Science Studies and Actor Network Theory for being "resolutely empiricist and even positivist [!], insofar as it takes for granted the existence of its objects of study as facts per se, and as specifically economicfacts" (113). Apart from the fact (no pun intended) that I believe he is misreading the field (Latour's theory of the "factish" counts for something after all), how is a statement like this one, not "[beginning] by dismissing the other discipline out of hand or [blaming] a particular discipline for the weakness of its interdisciplinarity"? He is not adequately practicing what he preaches, in my opinion. This type of dismissal is the exact sort of language that alienates Cultural Studies from work outside of the humanities.

Throughout the book, Grossberg insists that CS is not about "hijacking" the disciplines, and calls for more interdisciplinary research. Yet, how can we do this if we are warned not to be too empirical, and if we speak of "rescuing" disciplines from other scholars? I don't want to discredit all of Grossberg's critiques about the limitations which overly empirical, underdetermined analysis can bring; I simply feel that we are going to have to take a different rhetorical and affective stance as a field, if we want to forge forward within our current, real, material epoch.

These were some of mixed feelings I had when reading his book.

[traductio]

Now hold on there. That is quite a harsh criticism for a late response. I am terribly sorry; I should have checked back again sooner. I'll figure out the notifications sooner or later.

My sincere apologies -- there are frequent enough posts on the fora from students trying to get someone else to do their work for them that a single post without a follow-up looked suspicious, but I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.

I agree with much of your assessment, actually, although the book is not as fresh in my mind as it seems to be in yours. (I'll have to go back and look at my notes again.) I felt the same sense of excitement and frustration as I read it, though. Both conjunctural analysis and affect seemed to be very powerful conceptual tools, even though they have been worked out in different ways elsewhere (in particular in works he cites such as Policing the Crisis). I often evaluate books based on whether they would work well in a class, and I thought that Cultural Studies in the Future Tense would make for a very useful book in a "methods" class. (I put "methods" in scare quotes because it is a term I'm frequently forced to use when talking with other communication scholars, but I don't find that it suits what I do well.) Start with, say, Critique of the German Ideology and The 18th Brumaire (a pair I've thought about teaching together), then work through Policing the Crisis, then Future Tense.

As for the omissions, my awareness has less to do with being well read (I'm as well read as anyone who has been through a PhD program, but really not much more than that) than with where I was trained. Without being too specific, I'll just say that my training leads me to have a certain affinity with Fiske and his students.

As for critiques -- I thought he let James Carey off the hook too easily. Don't get me wrong -- I like Carey a lot and frequently use his essays on communication theory and on technologies and space/time -- but Carey frequently sidesteps the question of power. In every other way, power, in all its polymorphous incarnations, figures centrally in Grossberg's conjunctural analysis.

If you don't mind my asking, what field are you in? Your comments about cultural studies' institutional place in the humanities (and cultural studies scholars' ability to alienate potential allies) intrigue me. You mention "rhetoric in multiple disciplinary fields" -- do you mind if I ask which ones?

[jessicaeberhard]

I do appreciate the misunderstanding-- it's my own fault for not checking back sooner; I was ecstatic when I saw that someone was interested in discussing the book, but then got caught up in the semester, as I'm sure you understand all too well. Thank you for being willing to continue the conversation, even though it's been some time since you originally posted.

I very much agree with you that some of the most interesting and useful ideas Grossberg lays out have indeed been elaborated elsewhere. I often found myself saying, "but, isn't that very much the same thing as..." complexity theory, for example. I appreciate how he draws so many connections and brings together vastly different theoretical approaches in the employment of CS particular. And I agree with you that the lack of attention to relations of power does become the weakness of studies focused on empirical data. I suppose I feel that the way to overcome that weakness, however, is to find new openings in the methods of research, rather than to simply critique work for being empirical in and of itself. I think that there are those working from the traditional social studies methods of of research--such as the communications scholars you mentioned --who are finding ways to knit traditionally binary types of research together, and CS could benefit from articulating some of their approaches. One scholar I can think of which may enact more resistance than, say, James Carey's work would be J. Blake Scott, who has taken a CS approach to Tech/Com applying it particularly to AIDS rhetoric.

You are right in guessing that my concern with the interdisciplinary issue does indeed spring from my disciplinary affiliation. Although I come from a Literature and Cultural studies background, I am now moving more into the rhetoric of science realm, and am particularly interested in the Science and Technology Studies approaches to mapping relations of power by using careful analysis of material conditions and actor network theory; thus my defensiveness for Latour. In particular, I'm interested in the rhetoric of medicine.

Your suggestion of Future Tense as methods text is very interesting. I think you're right to place it, as you have, after some other, more foundational texts. It was the first book we read in a Cultural Studies and Rhetoric class this fall, and the newer graduate students had to peddle triple time to keep up. However, now that we're gone through Raymond Williams, The German Ideology, Foucault, and other classics, people are able to return to grapple more with Grossberg's work. On the other hand, your students may be coming into the class with a stronger background in the field. 

Since you mentioned Carey's technologies and space/time theory, and expressed interest in the interdisciplinary question, I am wondering if you've had a chance to look at the new collection put together by Diana Coole and Samatha Frost called New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics. I've only just begun to read it, but it lays out some very interesting premises regarding methods of research for the future of humanities and the critical project. In all honesty, it begins with a short but quite abrasive critique of the cultural turn; however, by voicing the these criticisms, it opens up long-held premises to healthy debate and, in a way, makes possible new conversations and practices in the field. I'm still in the midst of it, so I don't have a fully formed opinion, but it is certainly interesting, especially when considering the discourse of methodology. 

[traductio]

Nice post....



[spam link removed]

Shame -- given Grossberg's occasional verbosity, there was far more potential to produce interesting, more thoughtful spam.

[oklahawg]

Well, I hope I am not late to the party.

I have not read all of Future Tense, but will revisit and finish. Maybe I can learn something from asking questions. And, in return, my questions help guide those of you who will teach it. I am at a CC so something like this is read for folly and stimulation, not for a class I'll teach.

[traductio]

Well, I hope I am not late to the party.

I have not read all of Future Tense, but will revisit and finish. Maybe I can learn something from asking questions. And, in return, my questions help guide those of you who will teach it. I am at a CC so something like this is read for folly and stimulation, not for a class I'll teach.

I keep meaning to come back to this thread, but I keep being thwarted by my adorable 18-month-old daughter, who is either too cute to ignore or (more frequently) too much of a terror on two legs to ignore.

But please do post -- and I really will get back to the thread eventually.

[thimble]

Late-ish to the thread but ... I find Grossberg frustrating.  I know this sounds naive but he just seems to ruminate about how people behave, what society is like, how economies work, why rock music is so thrilling, and so on.  Then he generates a discourse with uberspecific language/jargon to articulate (indeed, hyperarticulate) his ultimately very vague suppositions and assumptions.  Of course culture is overdetermined and complicated, but I see no reason to think that he (or any cultural studies person) is right when it comes to thick descriptions of culture.  It's so mediated by so many discursive threads that it just doesn't sound real or accurate to me--it's tone deaf to its own material.   

None of this is meant to be combative, by the way--I'm genuinely curious to know what value people are finding in Grossberg and other cultural studies theorists who conduct little empirical research.

[traductio]

Late-ish to the thread but ... I find Grossberg frustrating.  I know this sounds naive but he just seems to ruminate about how people behave, what society is like, how economies work, why rock music is so thrilling, and so on.  Then he generates a discourse with uberspecific language/jargon to articulate (indeed, hyperarticulate) his ultimately very vague suppositions and assumptions.  Of course culture is overdetermined and complicated, but I see no reason to think that he (or any cultural studies person) is right when it comes to thick descriptions of culture.  It's so mediated by so many discursive threads that it just doesn't sound real or accurate to me--it's tone deaf to its own material.  

None of this is meant to be combative, by the way--I'm genuinely curious to know what value people are finding in Grossberg and other cultural studies theorists who conduct little empirical research.

I like how this thread keeps coming back -- it reminds me that I need to take a look at Cultural Studies in the Future Tense again, although the semester keeps getting in the way.

In one sense, I agree with you -- Future Tense is a book that could use a good editor in a number of places. When I read it last summer, I got frustrated when chapters began to resemble the bad lit reviews that my less capable grad students write. I wanted to see more forest, less trees. (How many times have I written that now on my students' papers? Soon they'll start writing it in the margins themselves, and then maybe they'll fix it.) The difference with Grossberg, of course, is that he knows what the hell he's talking about, and my students are still feeling their way through.

The question of empirical research is important, though, one that drives a lot of the research I do. My first book (which just came out -- yay!) is a detailed case study of Cultural Phenomenon A, and my second book (of which I've written half) is a detailed case study of Cultural Phenomenon B, which is closely related to A. As I write book two, I see patterns emerge in its similarities with book one, and these patterns operate at a more complex level of abstraction. Phenomena A and B are symptoms, I'm coming to see, of a deeper underlying logic.

What's exciting about this for me is that these case studies are also helping me develop a set of tools to test claims about context and contingency -- two of Grossberg's preoccupations -- is a concrete way. If I carry through with this line of research, book three will address Grossberg, Bhabha, Spivak, and other cultural studies theorists, by describing this underlying logic.

So -- back to prepping tomorrow's class. In the meantime, the book I'm reading that I'm finding really exciting is Matthew Sparke's In the Space of Theory, which performs the type of concrete analysis I think cultural studies needs to do. It's interesting (to me at least) that Sparke is trained as a geographer. He's made me pay a lot more attention to that field than I had in the past.