Searching for Meaghan (Morris)

I am delighted to be here celebrating the unique career of Meaghan Morris, who is, after all, not just a precious intellectual partner (and sometimes mentor) but also a deeply valued friend.1 As it turned out, the invitation to speak at an event honouring Meaghan on the occasion of her retirement provided the pressure I needed to write something I have been trying to write—and postponing—for decades. Why try for so long? Because she is, in my opinion, one of the most original and dedicated practitioners of cultural studies. Why try for so long? Because I could never find a comfortable way of doing it. I would try identifying some representative sample, some set of exemplary texts, that would enable me to make visible the commonalities and diversities that define the singularity of her analytic practice, the contextuality of her political thematic and the trajectory of her career. Every time I thought I had settled on the texts, I would remember another of my favourites, or Meaghan would send me a new one, inevitably shattering my selection and the comfortable assumptions I had made about how to ‘read’ them

Entre consenso y hegemonía: Notas sobre la forma hegemónica de la política moderna

La mayoría de los intérpretes de la modernidad han considerado que la política moderna es ideológica y consensual. Sin embargo, la política moderna no es siempre una lucha por el consenso ideológico, sino que involucra una lucha por la «hegemonía». Este artículo describe las tres principales diferencias entre las luchas por el consenso ideológico y las luchas por la hegemonía. Además, el articulo se enfrenta a la cuestión de cómo una particular hegemonía es establecida, mantenida y confrontada

Lutando com anjos: os estudos culturais em tempos sombrios

O artigo reflete sobre quatro questões relacionadas aos estudos culturais, em diferentes dimensões: a formação e a prática dos estudos culturais (pragmática), o conceito central de conjuntura (conceitual), a natureza e limites do materialismo e do pós-humanismo (filosófica) e, por fim, sobre o conceito de cultura (empírica). Tais discussões são importantes para que os estudos culturais estendam seus debates além das fronteiras acadêmicas e adotem diferentes estratégias para entender e mudar o mundo

Pleasure and meaningful discourse: an overview of research issues

The concept of pleasure has emerged as a multi-faceted social and cultural phenomenon in studies of media audiences since the 1980s. In these studies different forms of pleasure have been identified as explaining audience activity and commitment. In the diverse studies pleasure has emerged as a multi-faceted social and cultural concept that needs to be contextualized carefully. Genre and genre variations, class, gender, (sub-)cultural identity and generation all seem to be instrumental in determining the kind and variety of pleasures experienced in the act of viewing. This body of research has undoubtedly contributed to a better understanding of the complexity of audience activities, but it is exactly the diversity of the concept that is puzzling and poses a challenge to its further use. If pleasure is maintained as a key concept in audience analysis that holds much explanatory power, it needs a stronger theoretical foundation. The article maps the ways in which the concept of pleasure has been used by cultural theorists, who have paved the way for its application in reception analysis, and it goes on to explore the ways in which the concept has been used in empirical studies. Central to our discussion is the division between the ‘public knowledge’ and the ‘popular culture’ projects in reception analysis which, we argue, have major implications for the way in which pleasure has come to be understood as divorced from politics, power and ideology. Finally, we suggest ways of bridging the gap between these two projects in an effort to link pleasure to the concepts of hegemony and ideology

Putting Belonging into Place: Place Experience and Sense of Belonging among Ecuadorian Migrants in an Italian Alpine Region

This paper explores the meaning and mechanics of belonging with a particular focus onthe role of place and place-making. It explores the ways people come to achieve a senseof belonging with reference to recent theoretical treatments of place, territory, andmobility. We ground our discussion in analysis of an ethnographic case of Ecuadorianfamilies who have migrated to Trentino in northern Italy. Most families miss the socialrelationships and places they left behind, but have decided to stay permanently in Italy,giving up the “myth of return” (Anwar 1979). Trentino offers more opportunities interm of employment, education, and access to services than Ecuador. Yet the decisionto stay in Trentino is based on more than a simple assessment of economic advantage.Participants spoke of a slowly unfolding sense of belonging to Trentino, with strongaffective dimensions born of a specific attachment to the very materiality of place inTrentino. This attachment may be regarded as an assemblage of social, material andaffective resonances, experiences and resources, revealing something of the place andfeeling of belonging. Hence, the Ecuadorian sense of belonging does not rely on anabstract conception of cultural affiliation, nor is it a purely psychological response.Rather, belonging accrues in particular practices and material attachments.We unpackthese practices by documenting the work participants put into inhabiting an unfamiliarplace as “their” place, while at the same time questioning the ontological status of space

Nostalgia and style in retro America: moods, modes and media recycling

This paper considers nostalgia as a cultural mode in contemporary America