Public Humanities' (Victorian) Culture Problem

Datos Bibliográficos

ID19005183
AutoresMary L Mullen (0009-0007-9853-739X, autor de correspondencia)
Año2014
Volumen30
Número2
Páginas183-204
Fecha de publicación2014-11-13
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0950-2386 • E-ISSN: 1466-4348
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09502386.2014.978802
OpenAlexW2007523947
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas35

Questioning scholars who claim that the public humanities are the future of the humanities, this article argues that contemporary public humanities initiatives reproduce Victorian cultural logics by reinforcing divisions between popular and national culture, defining democracy through the state and state institutions and maintaining social inequality while perpetuating imperialism. It contends that like Victorian cultural critics, especially Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill, who differentiate between culture and public culture in order to exclude particular social groups from democratic participation, these contemporary programs define culture institutionally in order to secure the authority of the university. Instead of changing the principle of knowledge or cultural authority, the public humanities strengthen and legitimate established power relations as they exclude minority cultural groups. Warning against channelling new energy into old forms, the article concludes by focusing on public culture as a mode of relation rather than an institutional form

Art · Cultural policy · Democracy · Humanities · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Popular culture · Public culture · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Cultural Studies · Law · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · University Challenges and Reforms