What is Cultural Materialism? Definition, History, and Examples

In this episode we explore Cultural Materialism as a movement in literary criticism and cultural studies, focusing on its history, the way it theorizes cultural texts, and its relationship to Marxist literary criticism and Liberal Humanism. We conclude with an example of how you can use cultural materialism yourself to explore and study film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays.

The host, Dr. Alexander K. Smith, holds an MA from Oxford University and a PhD in the Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas from the University of Paris, France.

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Works Cited:
Belsey, C. 1985. The Subject of Tragedy: Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama. London: Methuen.

Dollimore, Jonathan and Sinfield, Alan. 1985. Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Drakakis, John (ed). 1985. Alternative Shakespeares. London : Methuen.

Sinfield, Alan. 1992. "Theatres of War: Caesar and the Vandals" in Sinfield, A. Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading. Clarendon : Oxford, pp. 1-28.

Parvini, Neema. 2012. Shakespeare and contemporary Theory: New Historicism and Cultural Materialism. Bloomsbury: London.

Williams, Raymond. 1973. "Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory" in New Left Review, (I)82.

Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Williams, Raymond. 1980. Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays. London: New Left Books.

Williams, Raymond. 1980. Culture and Materialism: Selected Essays. Verso: London and New York.

Žižek, Slavoj. 2001. The Fright of Real Tears: Krzysztof Kieslowiski Between Theory and Post-Theory. London: BFI.

Endnotes:
[1] Two points here. First, I accidentally misspoke: The publication in question is actually from 1973, not 1976! (See: Williams, Raymond. 1973. "Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory" in New Left Review, [I]82). More importantly, though, I should note that Raymond Williams did not coin the term cultural materialism itself -- he adapted it from the anthropologist Marvin Harris's 1968 book "The Rise of Anthropological Theory".

0:00 Introduction
0:56 Overview of Concept and History
2:09 The Roles of Historicism and Ideological Analysis
6:32 Liberal Humanism and Marxist Literary Criticism
9:47 Structures of Feeling
10:57 Summary of Cultural Materialism's Method of Analysis
11:59 Using Cultural Materialism to Analyze Film Adaptations of Shakespeare
15:32 Major Criticisms of Cultural Materialism
17:46 Conclusion and Patreon Plug