Page 146 - Decoding Culture

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G E N D E R E D SUB E C TS, WOM E N ' S TEXTS 139
studies, so fluid have the two histories been that there always
remains a considerable body of work, a residue, which does not fit
easily into the categorial system.
Here I shall adopt an alternative approach more in line with the
analytic interests of this book, and certainly making no claims to be
a comprehensive summary of the many points of intersection of
feminism and cultural studies. We have already seen some of the
ways in which the history of cultural studies crystallizes around dif­
fering forms of post-structuralism, in particular in the alternative
positions found in Screen theory and in the work of the CCCS.
These two schools of thought, while coinciding in their desire to
make use of the concept of ideology as a central device in grasping
the social role of culture, articulate that task, and the theories nec­
essary for its successful application, in very different ways. For
Screen theory the principal emphasis is on the process of subject
positioning and, therefore, on the mechanisms (psychoanalytically
conceived) through which that positioning is achieved within cul­
ture. Ideology here is predominantly a matter of the construction of
subjects in texts and discourses. In the CCCS approach, ideology is
viewed as an aspect of the process of securing hegemonic domi­
nation, and subject positioning is conceived as only one element in
a more complex interaction between different components of cul­
ture. Relations between textual and real subjects, discursive
systems and social agents, and culture and ideology, are much
more socially negotiated here than in the apparent psychoanalytic
determinism of classical Screen theory.
Of course, these 'snapshots' of the two traditions distort and
simplify, freezing both Screen theory and CCCS work at one ana­
lytic moment in their development. There are many perils in that
procedure (not least the tendency to remove complex and nuanced
ideas from their conceptual context and thus make misunder­
standing more likely) but the advantage for my present task lies in

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