Out now in your download zone on the right —————————->

Ab sofort in Ihrer Downloadzentrale rechts ——————————->

Where do we have our opinions from? How do prejudices emerge? A nice example how socialization works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBJRT_1S8mQ&feature=related

Obviously, the term politics (Politik) is one of the terms that has been defined in various ways. Nevertheless, we seem to have a ’solid’ or ‘natural’ understanding of what politics means. We know that it’s something to do with governments, election campaigns and handshakes.

As far as I’m concerned, these associations don’t kick ass. Politics should be less about them - those people who we think are concerned with politics - and take a look at the original meaning of the word:

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions.

( wikipedia)

These groups of people are we ourselves. We make decisions every day. We decide what to read, what to buy, what to believe, what to worship. We also decide what not to read, to buy, to believe and to worship. Decisions are acts of agency and power. Through our decisions, we are exerting power, influencing and partly determining decisions of others (i.e. on the markets, in everyday communication).

If we define politics as our and everybody’s capacity to exert influence by decision, politics is a concept applying to both ‘official’ (governmental, institutionalized) processes of decision making as well as to our everyday interactions. From this understanding, politics is a holistic, all-encompassign concept. Our awareness of the political as the all-encompassign might keep us sensitive to the social inequalities of everyday life. Racial and sexual discrimination and its hegemonic support, for instance, might be better revealed and fought against by the simple knowledge about the (unequal) power-structures at play.

In a world where we associate nothing more with politics than governments, election campaigns and handshakes, however, the meaning of politics has become an abstract matter, a matter widely detached and estranged from our everyday lives, from our identities, and self-consciousness as democratic decisionmakers. Undetached of what’s going on in our nation state, we resign, we lay our responsibilities in ‘their’ hands. We assume our total and absolute powerlessness and whilst contemplating over ‘their’ bad decision, we care about anything that’s as far away from politics as possible. We live our lives. We decide what we read, what we buy, what to believe, what we worship. Absolutely unpolitically…

The politics of cultural studies

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politik

http://kulturkritik.net/lex/kompendium/fs_kompend.php?rub=politik

For those interested in listening to one of the most influential theorists in CS, here are the dates:

Introduction to Cultural and Regional Studies - Cultural Theory and Popular Culture

lectured by John Storey

Erstmals am: MI, ab 8.10.2008 Mi 14:00-16:00 Hörsaal D Unicampus Hof 10 Hirnforschungzentrum

Program:

1.    Industrialization, Urbanization

NEXT WEEK:
2.      Classical Marxism and the Invention of the English Christmas
3.      Freudian Psychoanalysis and Little Redcaoe
4.      The Frankfurt School and the Political Economy of Culture
5.      Culturalism
6.      Sturcturalism and Semiology (France tradition)
7.      Feminism and Cultural Analysis
8.      Hegemony and Cultural Studies (Marxist tradition)
9.      Post-structuralism 1 (Athusser)
10.    Post-structuralism 2 (Foucault)
11.    Post-structuralism 3 (Lacan)
12.    Postmodernism and Consuming Identities
13.    The Global Postmodern: the Culture of Globalization
___________

desweiteren gibt es zu verkünden, dass eure liebe kollegin bereits die texte für die erste übungsaufgabe eingescannt hat, und sie auf euren “privaten” seiten zu finden sind!