Slow scholarship? Cultural studies and television historiography

Abstract

Levine discusses the research and writing of her 2020 book, Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History, considering whether the long duration of the project qualifies it as “slow scholarship.” Within this context, she examines the slow scholarship movement and the ways that slowness may function as an interventionist practice. As well, she considers the ways that cultural studies benefits from an embrace of slowness, in particular in terms of the move toward radical contextualization inherent in cultural studies models of inquiry.

Culture is transnational

“…Ang lists some of the contexts to be considered in an analysis of culture, including nation and gender as well as 'race, class, ethnicity, regional location, generation, religion, economic conjuncture, political climate, family history, the weather, and so on and so on ' (1996: 73). Meanings of culture cannot be assigned a priori but can only be determined post facto, through a Szulc slow analysis (Levine, 2022) focused on the specificity of cultures in a plethora of interrelated and interdependent contexts. This is easier said than done.…”