Cultural Studies and Comparative literature

In the last years, and in determined contexts, Comparative Literature has formed a tandem with Cultural Studies that seems indissoluble. If there is something that has characterized both disciplines, it is the constant questioning of its field of action. Their relation parts, in our point of view, from the interest that these subjects have shown for the revision of the concept of the text, literariness, and aesthetic value, among other aspects. This has caused a series of reflections that have considerably expanded the field of study of literary analysis. In this sense, Cultural Studies have used tools of Literary theory to read all kinds of texts –that in many cases are not considered “literature”- generating a feedback, which this monographic intends to explore.

Which are the main points of connection between Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies? If the first relates to literary studies of the beginning of the 20th century, the second has a date and place of birth, in 1964 with the foundation of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in Birmingham, significantly, in a department of literature. Nowadays, these studies are associated, often in a confused way, to an amalgam of disciplines in which Comparative Literature and literary theory are included.

The intention of this proposal is to study in depth the relations between Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. Despite the fact that the latter are characterized for using methods from different disciplines, they very often part from a concept of the text that requires the tools of analysis of literary studies. As the first studies of the CCCS already point out, many television, cinema and journalistic texts are constructed under the narrative and rhetoric patterns that end up, ultimately, being part of a cultural mechanism, generator of subjectivities. On the other hand, Cultural Studies have collaborated with those literature departments that contributed to a concept of intertextuality that supposes a general redefinition of what literature means.

The present monographic starts from the interest Cultural Studies have aroused in the field of literature. An interest particularly developed in the Anglo-Saxon world, it has not shown the same degree of impact on other areas of the planet. Therefore, this monographic is also about attracting attention to a field of study still to explore, trying to occupy a space that has barely started to be contemplated in some academic spheres. We propose as a basis the relation between both disciplines starting from the following questions: What is a text? How and from where do we read? How is the literary category created? Which are its political implications?

With the aim of defining the wide sphere that Cultural Studies cover, we understand these as a space for criticism that, independently from the object of study, requires some type of textual analysis to interrelate them with literary studies. We propose two lines to explore this issue: on the one hand, the contributions of literary theory to Cultural Studies, that can be summarized in a series of tools that support the reading of a certain text. On the other hand, it is necessary to reflect on the ways in which Cultural Studies have oxygenated Comparative Literature.

We will value those articles, both practical and theoretical, that analyze the texts from the perspective of Cultural Studies: the problematization of the literary as a category, the discussion about the canon and the analysis of popular and mass literature, among other aspects, including the studies that approach objects of study that differ from those traditionally considered to be literary (cinema, television, music, etc.). In this sense, the proposals that connect Cultural Studies, which were originally developed to analyze contemporary objects of study, with the problems that diachronic studies generate, a common field of interest in literary historiography. We will pay special attention to the theoretical and methodological grounds of the articles, which must reveal an appropriate knowledge of the field of Cultural Studies.

Because of this, it is important that the articles sent for consideration specify the position of critical enunciation. Cultural Studies have been fed by theories that come from political and social movements that have questioned aspects like class, gender and ethnic group among other categories of difference. The theoretical dismantling of the hegemony of dominant groups constitutes an issue that has tried to be integrated into the academic sphere, and the most productive results have been the reflections in relation to the binary opposition high/low culture and the interest for mass media products.

In this sense, we pretend, according to the aims of the Journal 452ºF, to open a space of debate from the inner and outer side of literature. If according to Stuart Hill culture is a battlefield, then our intention is to generate new fronts.