Narrating the Subject: Cultural Studies and Postmodernism

JACKIE HESLOP I At the very moment at which cultural studies rh ~r; r1C! not shorn ofits in.t~~rd.isciplinallV c.rlariact~~ the of Marxism and posuno~aelrru:srn announces to ~v~UV~t~ Kobena Mercer '-o.L.................... studies that its ditter,en9 that the mirror was to pn!oc(:::upiatllons of to what of NARRATING THE SUBJECT 383 have been QIE.mcmtlea This contradiction need not be Tro.c'T'.oI'fT .....''-'-'1............., ..'''''','1''> pOllncs; it can also "1"\..' ...."71";0 as a ;critical feminist ep:LstE~mlolcigV hrullgtltel1ID.ent ideals and its em,anapatc)ry sullIec:t 384 JACKIE HESLOP pouncal SUIJlelct must still enunciate a pOl)ltilon, be articulated ",.....",...'I"\h' its inIII the structures "'.....".1'1,,,,,'" and schools ofculturalcriticism ... cannot deal with ot1,,>.,...ul·h'...~ll' there is to say about my mother's life As an eXclmlPle of how this kind of lcritical teIJruJlllst ep]LstE~m()Jogy' to the of CllltuI,at Sl:UQleS, NARRATING THE SUBJECT 385 Carolyn Steedman's a Good Woman. In this historical, auto/ biographlcat and considers the not only of gender but also of the [meta-]narratives' of and class: feminism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. She shows the of each these narratives in isolation to 'interpreting' - 'lives lived out on the ....... ,........ ,....4-h01C·T'I"' emphasis on class consciousness counts of British such as 1"''',01''n,(Y Class Childhood and The Uses the r01ID(lm2: collective criteria of class within the original mode ... was value./63 Steedman inh'oduces an the contours of the (classstudies . Her text reveals sexual to the homogenizing are social ideologies which which and Seabrook anti-heroes, of these earlier male na:rra,tiv'es, mothercouldbe'heroines Flax in another context, such narratives are written as from the 65 But what when are the mother in the workingclass narrative? Gender makes Mrs Steedman's a different and the THt"l.O'l',c)...."r the autonomous becomes the of, social meaning, Steedman's urge in TAT~'t"n,cr her mother's is not to from but to the sameness/ difference dialectic in to her.66 Mrs Steedman's story disaffirms the progressive trajectories and climactic successes of romantic narrative. A child of a Lancashire industrial and demographically Labour town, she denies that association through political Conservatism. She to via Steedman's to When fails (he never two daughters in an attempt to bribe him), a desire to buy her Steedman compares this desire to Biswas in A House Biswas V.s. Naipaul wrote in a house in VL\;C\;;.Ul.u."CU 386 JACKIE HESLOP Biswas's desire as mEiCrJ.be,d SuIJlect-1DO::;Itlon in romance, that conventional Steedman's text eX1Po~)es that would otherwise suture the ""d"""",,,,,, The sexual dHterlen(:e narrative fractures telj~OllogJ.cal ple~nitudle, ..........+'''..n between the social and as an sulbS1.1mpti.on under available master narratives. NARRATING THE SUBJECT 387 388 JACKIE HESLOP NOTES I want to thank Smaro Ross inSJLghlttul readiI1lgs, but also for their en(:oura~~enlent. and Cultural ......LU........L..:;;", 1. and P. Treichler 2 and so on, see M. Zavarzadeh and D. "''',,"VL &""''', I.1O::>/1~cl'r\a"u Politics: The Crisis of liThe in the .ttumamtLes, J3DtmalfJ.r1I 1986 Winter 9. 3 pr()cej~diln.s;?;S of which are collected in Cultural l:Ir~ossber'g: et al. 4 The introduction to Cultural Studies by l:IrjDSsbeI'g: they UlSif>t tilatcUltural studiesis ag~;re~isivelv antl-dlSCJlplimu-:y to delineate its disciplinary 00l.lnClaI1leS, a detern1in,:ltioln 'Theoretical Lt::1';aULt::::::i, 5 After the to move orthodox marxism,' Stuart Hall adds that he 'still within ... the discursive limits of a marxist serves 'one's reference I S. Hall, 'On Postmodernism and Articulation: An Interview with Stuart 10:2 58. Cited by K-H. 'Post-Marxism: Critical Postrnodemism and Cultural I Culture and Power: A ::'ClueEjlfl~;er, and C. 6 of Minnesota Press 7 73. 8 Mercer, "'1968"': Politics and 425. 9 to his credit HaH argues here that these act as tensions prc)dUlCJ.r;lg a critical with cultural studies. 'Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical 291. In his earlier essay, 'Cultural Studies and the...