CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland
When French Social Sciences Meet Cultural
Studies
Organiser: Eric Maigret
Maigret, Eric (Université de Paris 3,
France) WHY DID WE HAVE SO MANY GREAT SOCIOLOGISTS IN FRANCE AND SO LITTLE
CULTURAL STUDIES ?
Until recently, Cultural Studies have seemed to be out of the french landscape.
The reasons are now known : the strong impact of the sociology of culture led by
Pierre Bourdieu and the development of the semiological trends have both
contributed to a very critical view of the "cultural industries", in a
general context of elitism. Yet, many researchers have challenged these dominant
paradigms, arguing for more understanding of the industries and of the
audiences. Certeau is very famous for 20 years but Morin and Passeron are still
unknown abroad. Today, there is a surprising misunderstanding between France,
the USA and Great Britain. For many observers, british or american Cultural
Studies have exhausted their critical potential and look for more left attitude
in France (especially with Bourdieu) … but most of the french researchers look
for "cultural" policies or new paradigms! This misunderstanding is not
the first nor the last - and not necessarily useless.
Macé, Eric (Université de Paris 3,
France) FROM MEDIA TO MEDIATION : SOCIOLOGY OF "AVATARS" AS SOCIOLOGY
OF ACTION
This paper proposes to consider the products of our cultural industries as
specific forms of representation of the "reality" of the social world,
in other words, as one of its "avatars". In order to comprehend these
avatars through a sociological approach, we start from an insider's standpoint
(Edgar Morin vs Roland Barthes) which shows how mass culture products are
typical (as ambivalent, syncretic, reversible and ambiguous). We then suggest to
re-inscribe them within the frame of a general theory of action, pointing out
how these products are continually the object of a struggle for definition and
interpretation within the private and the public spheres (Alain Touraine, Howard
Becker and Bruno Latour vs Pierre Bourdieu).
Couldry, Nick (London School of
Economics, United Kingdom) BOURDIEU AND CULTURAL STUDIES: THE MISSING LINK?
Notwithstanding some harsh public statements against 'cultural studies'
(Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999), there is surprising common ground between
Bourdieu's recent reflections (1999) on the gap between social theory and
'experience', and historic concerns of cultural studies. This paper explores
such connections, looking in detail at Bourdieu's methodological writings, their
strengths and limitations. The Weight of the World makes a major contribution to
the unresolved search to reconcile structural factors (such as symbolic
inequality) with the fine grain of individual experience. This is however only
one of many fruitful connections between French social theory and international
cultural studies in both directions (why not an exchange between Alain Touraine
and Francois Dubet's work on 'experience' and Elspeth Probyn's work, and so
on?). The paper argues for a renewed dialogue between the Anglo-American and
French traditions, aimed at advancing our analysis of the complexity of
contemporary mediated cultures.
Mignon, Patrick (INSEP, France) SPORT,
ROCK AND OTHER DAILY LIFE OBJECTS IN FRENCH REPUBLICS
The absence of French researches in the field of cultural studies could be
analysed at two distinct levels. One is the social status of popular culture
(including working class culture or mass culture) in French society because of
the specific history of French nation and the role of culture in this history;
second is the history of the relations between social sciences, philosophy and
the social life objects. Sport, rock or pop music, could give a good example of
the articulation of this two levels as we can see now at the same time the
growing importance of sport and pop music in French society and growing interest
for pop or mass culture among French researchers. To understand this situation,
we would like to explore some hypothesis about the changes in the role of
politics and culture as framework for the definition of identities.
Allard, Laurence (Université Lille 3,
France) SEMIOLOGY AFTER THE CULTURAL TURN : AUDIENCE AND MASS-MEDIA, BETWEEN
PRAGMATICS AND SOCIOLOGY
Obviously many recent french studies dealing with movie and TV audience, from
reception studies to sociological approaches, have been inspired by Cultural
Studies (especially relationships between gender and reception ). These studies
will be presented and criticized regarding their difficulties to articulate
readers models and social membership. In order to overcome some of theses
difficulties we shall recall and examine in some depth the common semiological
background they share with Cultural Studies, from Barthes to Hall.
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