study questions

Some Questions about New Historicism/Cultural Studies

1. How did New Historicism get its name? What are some of the meanings and problems of the term New Historicism?

2. What does Michael Warner mean by the “motto” of New Historicism: “The text is historical and history is textual”? What complications does this statement introduce into the study of texts?

3. What are the four main influences on New Historicism?

4. How does Cultural Studies differ from New Historicism?

5. What does Foucault mean by “genealogy”? What does his term épistème mean? What example of an épistème does Richter give? What problems with Foucault’s methodology does Richter note?

6. What does Hayden White’s claim that history is discourse mean to the study of history, culture, and/or literature?

7. What important insight does the anthropologist Clifford Geertz provide literary and cultural studies? What is “thick description” and why is it an important methodologically.

8. What does Pierre Bourdieu mean by terms such as the “cultural market” and “cultural capital”?

9. What is “Postcolonial Studies”? What three theorists are noted by Richter as key figures? How do these three theorist differ?

10. What is good or bad about Madonna Studies?