Cultural Studies Research
Introduction
The term Cultural Studies covers an array of disciplines, research activities and methodologies which interrogate how cultural meanings are produced, disseminated and consumed/received through cultural texts and practices.
Within Modern Languages at Newcastle , inter- and multi-disciplinary cultural studies research is engaged in the most current debates in the field.
The areas under investigation include:
- popular/mass culture
- gender studies (particularly masculinity, feminism and post-structuralism)
- postcolonial and subaltern studies (including diaspora and migration)
- identities: local, national, global
We work in a wide range of languages , including Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Quechua, Spanish and Uyghur (a Turkic-Altaic language).
- Dr H Dauncey runs international research groupings which run regular conferences and edit associated journals. He has been made Chevaliers dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Government for his services to French culture. He runs the Northern French Media Research Group (founded 1995) with Dr G Hare and edits the associated Web Journal of French Media Studies (founded 1998)
- Prof Howard (with Dr S Dedenbach, Bonn) convenes the European Network for the Study of Andean Languages (REELA, founded 2003) and is an associate member of the Centre for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (CELIA , France).
Staff are also active in associations such as the Association for Asian Studies , Association for Studies in French Cinema ,International Forum Bosnia , Society for Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies Association, Asociación de Colombianistas and Women in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.
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Research Aims and Questions
There is a high concentration of staff engaged in cultural studies research in the school. Due to the multi- and/or interdisciplinary nature of this field, the thematic areas under investigation cut across all of the other research areas in the school with projects examining the interaction between popular culture and literature, studies of masculinity in film, gender and development, migration and language change, intersections between critical sociolinguistics and cultural studies, constructions of national/local/minority identities in music/literature, philosophy and film, translation and culture wars, language policy and identity politics, and particular (localised) accounts of modernity and modernisation. .
Researchers in cultural studies are also committed to cultural activities outside the academic community through television presenting, radio and press interviews, writing for popular publications and the press, multi-media projects, consultancy for filmmakers and governmental and non-governmental organisations (in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, the UK and USA ), and involvement in activities with local community/arts organisations. In this respect Dr. Patricia Oliart has played a central role in organising the VAMOS! Festival Newcastle’s celebration of Latin cultures.
Reflecting the multi-and interdisciplinary nature of research being carried out, several members of staff are active in cross-Faculty research groups/centres such as Americas Research group, Asia Network North East, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Developing Areas Research Network, Film and Media Research Group, Northern French Media Research Group, Popular Music Research group and Postcolonial Research group. Previous cross-school collaborations have included the project Popular Music and Song and National Identities which was a joint initiative of the French, German and Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (SPLAS) sections of the School of Modern Languages 
and the International Centre for Music Studies (ICMuS) at Newcastle. The issue of national identity is of particular current relevance as postmodern theorizing engages with the simultaneous yet seemingly paradoxical processes of cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization that characterize interactions in transnational global markets. The research group organised two international conferences and seminar series which have resulted in four volumes on popular music and national identity, and music and film. First to be published is Popular Music in France from Chanson to Techno: Culture, Identity and Society (London:Ashgate, 2003) edited by Hugh Dauncey and Steve Cannon. The first international conference in the UK on Popular Musics of Hispanic and Lusophone Worlds is planned for 2006.
Other potential themes for future collaborative projects include:
- Landscape and national identity
- Contested identities, identities in/and conflict
- Language ideologies and global/local identities
As global scholars our interests engage with not only the British tradition of the Birmingham School, particularly the work of Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall, and European and North American post-structuralism, but also the fields of Cultural Studies in Latin America, China and Chinese Central Asia. The forms of cultural analysis produced in other languages and within other traditions often question the assumptions that have orientated cultural analysis in Europe and North America and provide new perspectives on the fundamental problem of understanding culture.
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