BARG-E FARHANG
Year:2011 | Volume:NEW | Issue:22|Papers Count:14

Composition (function) and (representation) in Stuart Hall’s classification regarding representation enjoys a great significance. By following up with the concept of representation among the topics of theorists like Saussure, Barthes, Derrida and Foucault, Hall tries to formulize representation both as a theory and a valid method to study culture. In this route, he goes through Saussure-Barthes semiotics, Derridian deconstruction, and Foucauldian discourse analysis which are themselves a combination of theory and method, and the efforts taken has never caused a noticeable and identifiable separation between the two dimensions mentioned above. This paper will attempt to illustrate the theoretical and methodological partnership in the above topics and clarify the formulation desired by Hall for studying the other cultures using this method, something that might be able to answer some of the researchers’ concerns in this field.

Nowadays, while meta-analysis or the synthesis of the results of quantitative and statistical researches enjoy a body of knowledge and a broad background, meta-analysis in qualitative analyses is still going through its childhood stage. Despite the development and acquisition of qualitative analyses in behavioral and social sciences and the increasing development of the body of knowledge and cultural studies background, doubts and ambiguities regarding rationality, the feasibility of meta-combination of the results of the qualitative analysis are still discussed. While reviewing the nature and characteristics of qualitative analyses and introducing the considerable efforts to synthesize the results of this kind of studies including the concepts and methods of meta-research and meta-ethnography, this article calls our attention upon the essential point that the right time to do combinative studies and synthesize the results and findings of qualitative researches and this kind of movements and efforts in cultural and social sciences particularly cultural studies area, no longer seems irrelevant. This article is specifically a reflection on this key and controversial question that whether in cultural studies and qualitative analyses, meta-synthesis or meta-combination of the results, data and evidence, mainly in the form of narrative or text, are possible. Furthermore, this article provides recommendations on necessities and specific methodological considerations for meta-combination in cultural studies and qualitative analyses.

This essay consists of two main sections. In the first section, entitled “Foundations of Cultural Studies”, it is argued that literature, as a distinct university discipline, was formed on the basis of a “canon”, an authoritative list of highly praised literary works. The traditionalists who drew up the first syllabi of this discipline considered popular literature as lacking the necessary values to be included in the canon. One of the characteristics of cultural studies is its questioning of and challenging the distinction between high and popular literature. The author then explains the process of the formation of cultural studies and the focusing of this interdisciplinary field on popular culture, as well as Gramsci’s concept of “hegemony”. In the second section of the essay, entitled “James Bond Films from a cultural studied Perspective”, the character of James Bond (both as the protagonist of Ian Fleming’s novels and the hero of the hugely popular films made on the basis of Fleming’s novels) is analysed as the icon of western culture from the end of World War II onwards. In this section, the author explains four stages of the process through which James Bond has been transformed into an extremely popular figure for the people who have read James Bond novels or watched his films. It is concluded that studying James Bond novels and films, as instances of popular culture, has led to the uncovering of the dominant ideological and cultural values of society.

While explaining the current position of cultural studies, this article mentions the significant problem of this scientific field in theoretical and methodological area as planning the 4 step model of Nonaka knowledge production, including the process of “sociability”, “foreign emergence of superior knowledge”, and “interiorization”. The process of sociability is achieved in the first step by meetings and forming networks of cultural actors. The necessities of the second step and also the other steps in the production of knowledge present the inevitable role of producing theoretical knowledge or “theory” in this field. In the process of producing theoretical knowledge from culture, the determination and realization of “controversial topics” are inevitable, therefore this article tries to determine and realize the “controversial topics” in cultural studies and identify the possible strategies in forming the scientific circles and chairs of theorization.

The policy of cultural management in education is one of the attempts which is missing in many developing countries like Iran, but such policies lead to the response to the public culture sector. On one hand, it seems that the distance among the current challenges in the public culture management and cultural education in Iran has increased. Therefore, it is necessary to find specific solutions in cultural policy in order to ensure that this issue is achievable through managing the cultural affairs. The important point is that the policy and management of cultural affairs depend on having good, educated and experienced managers who function in determining the cultural guidelines and their implementation and evaluation, and in this regard, we need a long term plan. Also the lack of a comprehensive cultural plan and effective cultural management in educational centers in the country, are two issues that can have an essential and effective role in institutionalizing of values, beliefs, improving and changing the behavior patterns in society. Moreover, making cultural plans would be successful when they are based on “values-driven management” thought.

This paper aims to analyze the variations emerged in the cultural theory of the concepts of identity and subject. For this purpose, first we explain various concepts raised from subject and identity, and then we analyze the evolution of the concept of identity which has been emerged mainly affected by theoretical traditions of Marxism, Freudism, structural linguistics, Foucault and feminism. Based on these theoretical traditions, the Cartesian subject which was assumed to possess a fixed and stable identity, have been decentralized and converted to a subject of open, multiple, varied and sometimes contradictory subject. Among these, the sociological subject and identity which have been described as the result of social interactions and the combination of the internal fact (individual) and the external fact (social institutions) are not entirely rejected but the salience of another factor in identity is revealed.

In this paper, after the introduction and explanation of the details of the topic, science in Islamic culture is discussed and that humanities refers to a series of knowledge related to human and supernatural. Science as experimental findings is simply part of thoughts referring to non-experimental sciences. Philosophy, religion and history determine the geometry of science and its place. Although science does not have a land and geography, it depends on culture. The spirit of scientific thinking in the western culture suits the European culture. In the Islamic culture and philosophy, all sciences are related to revelation. The principles that lead to anthropology and cosmology views of a Muslim are very important. Thus, although humanities in Islamic philosophy and culture have a common methodology with the western culture but they are different in terms of value and principle. The difference in philosophy leads to difference in practice. It means that humanities in the western worldview is materialist and the worldview in the Islamic culture and philosophy is divine. So the norms of the two cultures would be different considering the principles. Humanities such as management, education, economics, sociology and the like in Islamic culture and civilization are influenced by the Islamic philosophical and ruling ideas.

Offering is one of the common norms in our society. What makes this norm necessary is the effect it leaves in the network of social relations and the daily interactions, and despite it might seem one of the traditional forms of behavior that should not have a special place in communities anymore, but can be indicative of the point that individuals’ relations together in a society is not based on immediate trends and benefits but on a common commitment to social order. Therefore we can say that offering is a suitable character for the kind of individuals’ socialization.But regardless of this positive compliment, offering can have a harmful form too. A norm which seems indicative of right sociability in the first glance, can be indicative of selfishness and lack of commitment to social order. Applying Slavy Žižek ideas and beliefs, this article explores how offering, despite having considerable potential for ethical regulation of social relations, can pave the way for the formation of isolated and antisocial personality.

To identify offering is one of the main possibilities and conditions in determining the status of the Iranian daily life and culture. Offering has already made the Iranian life and culture misunderstood by travelers, the Orientalists, Iranologists and famous anthropologists and due to the domination of a unilateral approach to it. This paper tries to verify the offering related to social distance, not far nor close, in association with “stranger”, based on the idea of George Zimmel and emphasis on offering in order to clarify its trend of paradoxical relationship. Offering in this distance, imposes a structure on the social mutual interaction which guarantees secrecy or dissatisfaction. This situation rises particularly in the transition from life in a small town to life in a metropolis where the internal arena is dominated by the external arena and is not able to express itself. The Iranian social world whose main trend is the daily life in a metropolitan city like Tehran in the new era has created a coexistence based on offering and the modern cultural bothering system and has faced strangers against the relatives.