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Cultural Studies is not a unified theory, but a diverse field of study encompassing many different approaches, methods and academic perspectives. As in any academic discipline, Cultural Studies academics frequently debate among themselves. However, some academics from other fields have criticised the discipline as a whole. It has been popular to dismiss Cultural Studies as an academic fad. Literary scholars__Yale literature professor Harold Bloom has been an outspoken critic of the Cultural Studies model of literary studies. Critics such as Bloom see cultural studies as it applies to literary scholarship as a vehicle of careerism by academics, instead of promoting essentialist theories of culture, mobilising arguments that scholars should promote the public interest by studying what makes beautiful literary works beautiful. Bloom stated his position during the September of 2000 episode of C-SPAN's Booknotes: [T]here are two enemies of reading now in the world, not just in the English-speaking world. One [is] the lunatic destruction of literary studies...and its replacement by what is called cultural studies in all of the universities and colleges in the English-speaking world, and everyone knows what that phenomenon is. I mean, the...now-weary phrase 'political correctness' remains a perfectly good descriptive phrase for what has gone on and is, alas, still going on almost everywhere and which dominates, I would say, rather more than three-fifths of the tenured faculties in the English-speaking world, who really do represent a treason of the intellectuals, I think, a 'betrayal of the clerks'."[15] Literary critic Terry Eagleton is not wholly opposed to Cultural Studies theory like Bloom, but has criticised certain aspects of it, highlighting what he sees as its strengths and weaknesses in books such as After Theory (2003). For Eagleton, literary and cultural theory have the potential to say important things about the "fundamental questions" in life, but theorists have rarely realized this potential. Sociologists__While sociology was founded upon various historic works purposefully distinguishing the subject from philosophy or psychology, Cultural Studies lacks any fundamental literature explicitly founding a new discipline. A relevant criticism comes from Pierre Bourdieu, who working in the sociological tradition, wrote on similar topics such as photography, art museums and modern literature. Bourdieu's point is that Cultural Studies lacks scientific method.[16] His own work makes innovative use of statistics and in-depth interviews. Cultural Studies is relatively unstructured as an academic field. It is difficult to hold researchers accountable for their claims, because there is no agreement on the methods and validity. Physicists__Main article: Sokal affair One of the most prominent critiques of Cultural Studies came from physicist Alan Sokal, who submitted an article to a Cultural Studies journal, Social Text. This article was what Sokal thought would be a parody of what he perceived to be the "fashionable nonsense" of postmodernists working in Cultural Studies. As the paper was coming out, Sokal published an article in a self-described "academic gossip" magazine Lingua Franca, revealing the hoax. His explanation for doing this was: "Politically, I'm angered because most (though not all) of this silliness is emanating from the self-proclaimed Left. We're witnessing here a profound historical volte-face. For most of the past two centuries, the Left has been identified with science and against obscurantism; we have believed that rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective reality (both natural and social) are incisive tools for combating the mystifications promoted by the powerful -- not to mention being desirable human ends in their own right. The recent turn of many "progressive" or "leftist" academic humanists and social scientists toward one or another form of epistemic relativism betrays this worthy heritage and undermines the already fragile prospects for progressive social critique. Theorizing about "the social construction of reality" won't help us find an effective treatment for AIDS or devise strategies for preventing global warming. Nor can we combat false ideas in history, sociology, economics and politics if we reject the notions of truth and falsity."[17] |
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