The canonization of 1960’s experimental counterculture theatre
What are the elements of theatre works chosen to represent the 1960’s avant-garde, who have they been chosen by and what do they say about our society?
These are some sources that I need to use ( at least 3 of them )
Crowther, Paul. Cultural Exclusion, Normativity, and the Definition of Art. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (2003): 121-31. Print.
Crowther separates exclusionism (cultural exclusion) into two basic forms in the beginning of his article : explicit and tacit. He describes exclusionism’s explicit mode as affirming the preeminence of one cultural group over the latter and excluding those groups from participation in society as long as the practices elemental to their identities remain different than those of the ruling culture. He adds that tacit exclusionism involves similar elements but is generally unrecognizable as well as unintentional and relates much broader attitudes. He notes that the rest of his arguments are based on tacit exclusionism. He observes the behavior of tacit exclusion through the axes of normativity that are:
1. The factors that categorize and classify art form
2. The criteria among those factors that enable distinctions of merit between art works.
The first section of the article concentrates on formalist approaches to the definition of art and how their tacit exclusionism adds to a questionable comprehension of normativity. Then, the article moves on to interrogate Designation definitions of art (based on the idea that artists’ designation of something as art due to a theoretical perspective is central to the creation of art as opposed to the artwork itself) Crowther argues that this standpoint is tacitly exclusionist and relates to broader problematic understandings of normativity. The third section of the article outlines artifactual imaging and its relation to the value of art. Finally, the article investigates and artwork’s place compared to those similar and theorizes the definition of art in terms of exclusionism.
Crowther, Paul. Defining Art, Creating the Canon: Artistic Value in an Era of Doubt. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.
Crowther, aims to answer the questions of what art is; why it is valuable and why some more than others, through an epistemological and historical perspective as opposed to his predecessors and their continuous emphasis on aesthetics. As a response to the “neo-conservative/ global consumerist degradation of artistic value”, Crowther fights the notion depicting humans as subjects driven solely by economic and social demands. His theory that aims to overcome this degradation lies on the fundamental value of creating art and the way it develops though innovation and historical rectification. He demonstrates his belief that narrow traditionalist terms should not define the canon. The book primarily exemplifies Crowther’s theories by applying them to music, such as the reasons for the decline of musical provision in schools. This information still proves to be valuable for the psychology behind canonization. Crowther also provides a perspective on why Designationist theories have gained such eminence. He attributes such notions to consumerism, advertisement, the cult of efficiency etc.
Bryson, Bethany. “”Anything But Heavy Metal”: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes.” American Sociological Review 61.5 (1996): 884. Web.
In this article, Bryson offers quantitative evidence of cultural anomaly. The main source of data is a General Social Survey ion 1993 based on musical dislikes. The article aims to show that cultural taste is used to fortify symbolic boundaries between people and categories of those they don’t like. She rejects Bourdieu’s argument of high-status cultural exclusion and instead offers the claim that musical exclusiveness decreases with education. She links political and musical tolerance. The most interesting part of her claims lies within her inclusion of racism and democratic liberalism into her argument. The genres whose fans are least educated seem to be rejected mostly by the musically tolerant. Her main argumentative point is that “cultural tolerance constitutes multicultural capital as it is unevenly distributed in the population and evidences class-based exclusion”. This article provides import data on statistical evidence for claims central to an argument on canonization, such as taste patterns’ ability to reflect and influence social and economic structure.
Greetham, David. “`Who’s In, Who’s Out’: The Cultural Poetics Of Archival Exclusion.” Studies In The Literary Imagination 32.1 (1999): 1. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.
The arguments present in this article are like many others, based on power and memory. Greetham argues that archives do not accurately represent our history but instead present and idealized reflection of it. When they should represent the rules, they demonstrate the exceptions. As an example he uses the time capsule sent into space that did not include many negative sides of history. He believes that archives are clandestinely politicized while being covered-up as objective representations. He notes that often it is those things ignored that are most valuable and worth preserving. The article creates the a question such as: Not everything can be remembered, so now what? ; and the paradox that abundance makes it easier to store and create but harder to manage. Greetham finally comments on our struggle to find ways to navigate among cultural remains that repress as well as constitute our memory archives and gives a personal account on how exclusion works against his interest.
Butler, B. (2009). ‘Othering’ the archive – from exile to inclusion and heritage dignity: The case of palestinian archival memory. Archival Science, 9(1-2), 57-69. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10502-009-9095-0
The paper establishes the inevitable nature of archives and their occurence in the structural breakdown of a memory. The focus lies on there being a “ mal d’ archive” (malice in the archive).The controversy lies within the fact that while there certainly lies and Assault on Truth, the hunt for something secret or lost is also present. Derrida creates a strategy based on rethinking the methods of archiving constituencies that have been excluded from the dominant cultural-institutional discourse. She engages with the moral-ethical issues that shape the future of cultural heritage studies. There is mainly a broad anthropological stand-point present in her arguments. A great portion of the paper engages with the ethical and conceptual issues built up by the author in the first chunk, in terms of Plaestinian cultural politics and how this creates a threat on what Butler calls ‘Heritage dignity’. The paper ends with a call to action for “archival grand narratives to be relinquished in terms of a more humane therapeutics”
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