Cultural Studies Debate - Grossberg vs. Garnham

In Lawrence Grossberg’s article, Cultural Studies vs. Political Economy: Is Anybody Else Bored with this Debate?, he repeatedly criticizes Nicholas Garnham’s inability to define and discuss cultural studies. Garnham makes several criticisms about cultural studies in his essay. His first criticism is that it “celebrates popular culture and gives up any oppositional role”, due to the fact that cultural studies ignores the institutions of cultural production (626). Secondly, “because cultural studies ignores cultural production, it is incapable of understanding the real structures of power, domination, and oppression in the contemporary world” (626).

Grossberg completely disagrees with Garnham’s criticisms… He believes that cultural studies did not reject political economy, but instead, it rejected the way some political economists practice political economy. However, Grossberg agrees somewhat that some parts of cultural studies have become too celebratory of culture. Although Grossberg shoots down many of Garnhams opinions on the matter, he also seems to agree occasionally with him.