Page 203 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

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Said, Edward (1935–2003) Said was born in Palestine but emigrated to the United
States where he was educated at Princeton and Yale before becoming a Professor at
Columbia University (New York). The central themes of Said’s work were those of
culture and imperialism and he is regarded as one of the foremost writers in the
domain of postcolonial literature and theory. In particular, his landmark work
Orientalism is concerned with the application of Foucault’s theories of discourse
and power to the political and cultural relationship of the West to the East. Thus,
the Orient was understood by Said to be a historically specific discursive
construction constituted by Western imagery and vocabulary which generated an
Orient that reproduced the hegemony of the West. At the same time, he rejected
the idea that the Orient remained passive during and after the process of Western
imperialism.
Associated concept Cultural imperialism, discourse, Orientalism, Other, power.
Tradition(s) Marxism, postcolonial theory, poststructuralism.
Reading Said, E. (1978) Orientalism. London: Routledge.

Saussure, Ferdinand de (1857–1913) Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose
posthumously published book Course in General Linguistics (reconstructed from his
notes by students) laid the basis for what became structural linguistics or semiotics,
the ‘science’ of signs. Saussure’s influence on cultural studies comes indirectly
through the work of other thinkers who were influenced by him. It was perhaps
Roland Barthes’ 1972 book Mythologies that most clearly demonstrated the
relevance of semiotics to cultural studies and heralded the field’s interest in
language, signs and culture mediated through Saussure’s thinking. The central tenet
of Saussure’s argument is that language is to be understood as a sign system
constituted by interrelated terms without positive values (that is, meaning is
relational). Langue, or the formal structure of signs, is said to be the proper subject
of linguistics.
• Associated concepts Language, meaning, signs, structure, text.
• Tradition(s) Semiotics, structuralism.
• Reading Saussure, F. de (1960) Course in General Linguistics. London: Peter Owen.

Self-identity The concept of self-identity refers to the way we think about ourselves
and construct unifying narratives of the self with which we emotionally identify.
That is, self-identity can be grasped as a reflexive and discursive construction of self,
a story we tell ourselves about our self. Stuart Hall’s influential conceptualization of
identity conceives of it as the suturing or stitching together of the discursive

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