Suchergebnisse

The "spatialization of thought & experience" -- ie, the condensation of time relations into spatial ones -- is analyzed as a recent but universally accepted component of contemporary culture. Philosophical separation & blurring of time & space categories by Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Gottfried Leibniz, Henri Bergson, & Georg Lukacs are summarized. Possible causes of spatialization, eg, urbanization, technological expansion, TV, & the culture industry, are also reviewed, along with important repercussions, including heightened immediacy, altered identity/correspondence perceptions, & loss of historical consciousness. The uses of spatialization by advanced industrial societies & controlling elites are noted, & the sociopolitical necessity of "recapturing duration" is stressed. L. Whittemore.

Three recent approaches to the study of popular culture are analyzed: the first two represent the divergent perspectives within critical theory of Leo Lowenthal & Theodor W. Adorno; the last typifies the semiological approach, especially as it has been developed in the French context by Roland Barthes. After discussion of various approaches to popular culture since the eighteenth century, the strengths & weaknesses inherent in the methodologies of these three individuals are discussed. Lowenthal is found to be particularly acute on the context & historicity of cultural production, but weaker in theory. Adorno is viewed as strong in theory, but less satisfying in his sensitivity to the details of everyday cultural life. Barthes is seen as offering the most promising methodology, but certain shortcomings are pointed out in his semiological approach to culture. Suggestions are offered for a possible fusion of the best of critical theory & semiology. AA.

The modern carnival is an aspect of established culture separated from normal social life & at the same time reflecting it. Its medieval forerunners were part of everyday life, introducing otherness into daily routine. This otherness was institutionalized in three separate forms: the fair, the circus, & the carnival. The carnival's functions today include providing a place for people unable to fit in elsewhere, putting the vulgarity of United States life on display, allowing suspension of normal rules of behavior, & allowing descent into the sexual & irrational. However, the negativity it embodies is no longer genuinely liberating, having been placed outside of society. More recently, the carnival has been made into a group of rides, losing even what negativity it formerly had. W. H. Stoddard.