CULTURAL STUDIES & COMMUNICATION
Year:2016 | Volume:12 | Issue:44 |Papers Count:8

This paper tries to present an approach for teaching Cultural Theory. Cultural Studies discipline theory has very significant place. All students of cultural studies have to pass the course of Cultural Theory. I have discussed how Cultural Theory is the core of cultural studies and it is needed to convince students to pay serious attention to the course of Cultural Theory. This paper argues that teaching cultural theory is not merely dealing with theories, in fact we practice all the political and social dimensions of cultural studies. In addition, here I used my lived experiences for demonstrating some educational and political barriers to teach Cultural Theory in Iran. This approach for teaching cultural theory is rooted in cultural studies cognitive, political and educational objectives. I showed that learning theory is a kind of ethical and emotional practice and it is also theoretical and cognitive exercise. This is the first Persian text to discuss how to teach cultural theory in cultural studies.

Tehran as one of the main metropolises has been faced with slums and raise of informal houses since 1340’s. This problem dramatically has been continuing. Tehran has been faced with the density of social crisis such as prostitution, labor children, drug deal, addiction, poverty and impossibility of convenient house. Volume, depth and spread of social problems in slums of Tehran and ignorance of all change them to dissolvable problems. Ignoring the feeling of insecurity in residents of the capital, changes in attitudes and values of residents’ view, formation of cultural economic and social mosaic unlike the zoning and density and inequality of space becomes more impossible day to day. In such circumstances, lack of sense of responsibility or taking outside limit issue from field of law will not be solution. Without a critical approach to these problems, applying fairy paradigm to all residents in Tehran, respect to citizen’s rights for all residents, will be impossible. Social relation and its domain, without social justice people-oriented approach, are an integrated totality which results in social, political and also cultural conflicts in encounter with class gaps and spatial inequality.

The purpose of this study is to examine the meaning transformation of despotism signifier from Safavid Era to the rising of Iranian despotism discourse in Qajar era. The method is archaeology and the study is focused on the relations of the meaning transformation with discourse practices. Pre-modern texts were investigated for the significance of Despotism. The results suggested that these significance refer to ethical meanings. Then it can be claimed that despotism in pre-modern texts do not have politico-cultural connotations. Conceptual significance Turn of despotism to a discourse is the byproduct of historical events such as war, cholera and famine. This turn creates a new order of things, on one hand, and problematized despotism as a barrier for this new order, on other hand. In this context despotism became the central signifier of a discourse which tries to theorize the Iranian society. This concept in Iranian study is behaved like a fetish which should be returned to its historical springs.

Urban life is remarkably occupied with advertising billboards, images and sketches by governmental and private organizations and companies. People are usually exposed to Municipal billboards that aim at propagating civil values and improving civil behaviors. This article tries to give an analysis of Isfahan' s municipal billboards appeared from 2010 to 2012, and then it provides an account of discourses governing the semiological relations of them. The cognitive semiological analysis according to the interpretive paradigm has provided us with the theoretical base as well as the methodology of this research.Twenty-seven cases have been selected from the 140 billboards and images which set from 2010 to 2012. After making certain that chosen cases fit with our research well, we started our process of analysis and interpretation. According to our findings, urban billboards are governed by five main discourses: message-based, sympathetic, warrant, law-based and esthetic message-based discourses. While the esthetic message based boards were more common since 2010 till 2011, sympathetic discourse is further in 2012 and a discursive shift occurred by which the message based discourse with harsh images, negative connotations and warrants were replaced with sympathetic and esthetic contents.

Blockbuster cinema by displaying the interpretation of a part of the society and occupying box offices it shows the interest of the people toward displayed interpretation.The blockbuster social genre 40s, 60 and 80 have been selected to show changes in blockbuster cinema of Iran. Structuralism approach films have been analyzed according to structuralism approach, semiotics of Selby and Cowdery and also binary oppositions have been analyzed. As the analysis of the films showed, in Iran cinema blockbuster has changed. In some works, dual joints were found. Despite having dual shared traditionalism and modernism, based on the discourse of the film, the duals are different regarding semantic aspect. Traditionalism central Discourse is in the 40s. Traditionalism and modernism interfere in the 60s and reintegration based on the modern order is given. Top discourse in the 80s is modernism. It was also shown that altruism and conformity are positive features which are welcomed in these movies. In all studied films, the logic which is criticized in surface is criticized in lower side of narrative in monologue and authoritarian manner, and also the other is marginalized defenseless.

Iranian family Experiences Major structural changes, parallel with fundamental political, economic, social and cultural changes at the macro level in the modern era. Today, because of changes that happen constantly and consistently and impose instability, can not be imagined the same form for Iranian family and at the same time can be seen the cultural characteristics of traditional, modern and postmodern in the family. Such problems cause various conflicts in the family and as a result force family to adopt various strategies to resolve conflicts andcontradictions. In this research, we tried with the empirical review family, reflection and individuality concepts, to pay Iranian family strategies in Iranian cinema with semiotic approach. Studing cinema is effective to understand reflexive actions and activests strategies, because the film can be regarded as a representation system that is trying to reproduce the social reality.In this study, were studied three films "Charshanbe soori", "Zendegi moshtarak aghay Mahmoudi va banoo " and " Saadat abad ".In Conclusion of the three films, paid to Describe the Iranian family and finally, were expressed any strategies to resolve family conflicts. Regarding strategy of families can nominate the strategy of "suspension", "balance between incompatible positions" and "the importance of the forms”.

Bourdieu had the help of two concepts of “Habitus” and “Field” to explain his theory and to show social distinctions, he argues that the social world is made up of different fields. Each field has its own certain habitus and they can change depending on the field`s change. He believes that modern world is based on distinction. This distinction is clear in structural concepts such as space, class, capital and also in reaction concepts such as habitus, intra field performances and taste. It can be argued that the world in the modern world is the place for distinction. Given up development of modernity in varied world, there are lots of fields of distinction. Understanding the distinction in every society and cultural practices need reading of internal texts of the society. Understanding texts with Bourdieu approach can show distinctive approaches in each society.Usually texts such as art, novels, movies, theater, cinema, literature and other areas of popular culture overflows society in which we can read distinction modeling. In this article given to reading of one of the texts (A Separation) with Bourdieu approach sought to show modeling and distinctive aspects. Such a reading could be useful in understanding the application of concepts in Iranian society. In this film Farhadi makes distinctions, class and cultural recognitions prominent based on habitus and capitals. This means people in various fields and according to capital and habitus are willing to show off and on this basis they are either winner or loser.

This study aims to investigate the nature of trauma and its representation in "Super-frog Saves Tokyo, " by Haruki Murakami. Psychoanalytically and in particular through the lens of Slavoj Žižek, the unexpected intrusion of the real into the symbolic order is called trauma, which gains meaning only in retrospect.Different subjects respond differently to their trauma. Some of them avoid their traumatic memories and so expunge traces of trauma by situating, in fantasy, the origin of loss elsewhere. In such cases subjects represent their trauma through narrative fetishism. "Super-frog Saves Tokyo" belongs to After the Quake (2002) collection of short stories, which is an indirect description of the traumatic event of Kobe earthquake. In the selected short story, Murakami makes use of the inherent duality of magical realism in order to depict the nature of trauma and its representation. This article is a case study that explores the paradoxical nature of trauma and its representa.