American Studies 1020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Moral Evil, Cultural Studies

• School: Western University
• Department: American Studies
• Course: American Studies 1020
• Professor: Tom Cull

Document Summary

Cultural studies is interested in the things that determine who we are and the identity in which we choose. These categories are always determined by a hierarchy of power. These categories (gender, race, etc. ) are determined by relation of power. Two ways to reproduce this hierarchy: overt power anyone who is below you, you push down, co-overt power insidious; rationalizing why they are in that certain place in the hierarchy. Ideology convinces the person below you that that is their natural place . Sustain a worldview; this is where i belong; this where i should be . Power determines the criteria in which we decide what is true or false. How do people decide the categories in which become natural and common. Regimes of truth communicated by authority; authoritative discourses (ex. ) The perpetuation and the institution of slavery slavery is a positive thing to both slave and slave owner.