Shawn Pitre
Related: Dick Hebdige - Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979) - Dick Hebdige - Cultural Studies
Description
by Shawn PitreCourse “Tendances dans l’étude de la musique populaire”, 07/12/03
Hebdige’s 1979 Subculture: The Meaning of Style is now considered a classic in several disciplines. Associated with Cultural Studies and the Birmingham school, Hebdige’s book has been widely read by popular music scholars, all manner of social scientists, and fans of punk music and style alike. His work is basically a study of working class youth in 1970s England juxtaposed to their parents’ generation as well as immigrants from former or soon-to-be independent colonies, in particular Jamaicans. Hebdige’s work was a result of the need to understand a growing number of visible subcultures in Britain.
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Another potential obstacle in Hebdige’s work lies in the fact that readers must have knowledge of concepts put forth by a series of authors in order to effectively grasp his arguments. Some of these, Jean Genet and T.S. Eliot for example, are literary figures. Gramsci was a political scientist and sociologist with revolutionary leanings who developed the concept of hegemony. Lévi-Strauss was also a sociologist who also pioneered structural anthropology and developed the concept of homology. Barthes was a social and literary critic. Given the fact that Cultural Studies authors drew from many different sources, it not surprising that the reader should be familiar with the work of these figures and such a vast array disciplines. I have mentioned these already (anthropology, history, literary criticism and theory, Marxism, media studies, semiotics, structuralism, as well as sociology, the Chicago and Frankfurt schools). The plethora of works in which the reader must be well-versed is not my complaint as such. In fact, I welcome the educational opportunity this provides. My quarrel with cult studs lies within what I believe to be a larger context of academic double standards and is part of a more general critique of Cultural Studies that I would like to discuss.
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For all his insightful and pioneering observations on punk and postwar subcultures in Britain, styles and their meanings, and paramusical contexts, Hebdige’s work has some significant limitations. Some of these limitations can be justified given the historical circumstances revolving around the institutionalization of Cultural Studies. Since 1979 however, Subcultures has become a widely read classic in several disciplines, most notably popular music studies. The reader must be advised however, that some of the approaches and information presented (or lack thereof!) must be taken with a grain of salt and contextualized historically. --http://www.mediamusicstudies.net/tagg/students/Montreal/Tendances/PitreHebdige.html
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