Popular Participation in Culture and the Arts
As Raymond Williams notes, the complex concept of “culture” continues to carry traces of its earlier meanings — associated with the privileged “cultivation” and refinement of elite taste — along with more recent democratic and egalitarian resonances. Intense debates over the shape and functions of “culture” in the public sphere thus appear to be inevitable in contemporary societies.
Nearly all major cultural and arts institutions in industrial democracies are now publicly committed to increasing the diversity of their audience and to engaging historically excluded groups in their public programs. Yet many remain anxious over how to balance competing pressures for democratic inclusion, aesthetic distinction, cultural innovation and accountability to the public while also cultivating state, corporate and private funding. Conversely, nongovernmental and popular organizations the world over are engaged in debates over the potential of the arts and cultural practice for advancing social, political, environmental, human rights and economic goals on local, national and global stages.
Important theoretical and practical issues in the field include:
- What are the most effective and equitable ways to engage communities in cultural and arts institutions? How are “communities” to be defined and represented in deliberative processes around public art, exhibition development and cultural performances?
- What are the most productive research methods for studying popular reception of the arts, museums and other cultural institutions and practices? How are “audiences” to be conceptualized in such studies?
- How useful are marketing models, drawn primarily from business and advertising contexts, for arts and cultural institutions, especially those engaged in efforts to reach historically underserved communities and diversity their audiences?
- To what extent do new media and digital technologies, including the Internet, carry the potential for creative mass participation in the making and dissemination of art and cultural forms? To what extent have these technologies contributed to, or been directed towards, the global homogenization, corporatization or banalization of culture?
- How important are popular culture and the arts in the emergence and expansion of democracy? Under what circumstances do popular arts function as arenas in which critical questions related to social justice and the polity may be formulated and debated?
- Is it useful to draw a distinction between “popular culture” and “the arts”?
- What are the potential functions of the arts for reconstituting productive dialogue and social connections among polarized communities in post-conflict contexts?
Specialists and Resource Persons
- Mark Auslander (Anthropology)
- Cynthia Cohen (Coexistence)
- David Colfer (Brandeis Theater Company)
- Scott Edmiston (Office of the Arts)
- Judith Eissenberg (Music)
- Eric Hill (Theater Arts)
- Thomas King (English and American Literature)
- Laura Miller (Sociology)
- Nancy Scott (Fine Arts)
- Faith Smith (English and American Literature & African and Afro-American Studies
Related Courses at Brandeis
- Museums and Public Memory (ANTH 159a )
- Coexistence, Cultural Work and the Arts (COEX 250a )
- Sociology of Culture (SOC 221b)
- Thought and Culture in Modern America (HIST 169a)
Related Online Resources
ArtsBoston
www.artsboston.org/about.cfm
DigiArts Africa
www.unesco.org/culture/digiarts/africa
Massachusetts Cultural Council
www.massculturalcouncil.org/
MusicUnitesUS (Brandeis)
www.brandeis.edu/MusicUnitesUS/
UNESCO on Culture
http://www.unesco.org/culture