Oh, The Humanities!

I Had to read this essay for my Intro to Cultural Studies class called The Circulation of Cultural Studies by Lawrence Grossberg.

In it Grossberg defines Cultural Studies as:

"...concerned with describing and intervening in the ways 'texts' and 'discourses' (i.e. cultural practices) are produced within, inserted into, and operate in the everday life of human beings and social formations, so as to reproduce, struggle against, and perhaps transform the existing structures of power."

Okay, alright, kinda got that. But then Grossberg continues:

"That is, if people make history but in conditions not of their own making (Marx), cultural studies explores the ways this process is enacted within specific historical formations."

Most of the critics I've been reading don't have a definition of cultural studies, but just ideas of what could be considered cultural studies.

From Matthew Arnold's ideas of sweetness and light to Karl Marx's interest in the underlying system of production, just when I think I've got it, I don't. Raymond Williams idea of the conjunction of the personal with the ordinary, makes the most sense to me, but unfortunately is also the most vague.

I still have tons of reading to do.

Why couldn't I be interested in something simple like math.