New Historicism and Cultural Studies

New Historicism and Cultural Studies Cultural studies "involves viewing and analyzing practically any recorded phenomenon, present or past, as a social text," including phenomenon not usually considered text, with a tendency to seek out subjects not considered to be art traditionally. (1207) Foucault: history is neither real nor objective. Not real because we only see it through representations of it (history books). Not objective because it is written by a subject constituted by society, ruled by …

…way knowledge and the power associated with it are originated and distributed." (1206) New historicism is a method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts, usually of the same historical period, in which the literary and non-literary texts are given equal weight and constantly inform of interrogate each other. New historicism is interested in history as represented and recorded in written documents, in history-as-text. Historical events as such are seen as irrecoverably lost.