What are the four major characteristics of Cultural Materialism ? Show how thesecombine to formulate what has been called ‘a politicised form of historiography’ / Showwith the help of a literary text of your choice how Cultural Materialism differs fromNew Historicism as a critical approach.

Cultural materialism is one of the major anthropological perspectives for analysing human societies. It
incorporates ideas from Marxism, cultural evolution, and cultural ecology. Materialism contends that the
physical world impacts and sets constraints on human behaviour. The materialists believe that human
behaviour is part of nature and therefore, it can be understood by using the methods of natural science.
Materialists do not necessarily assume that material reality is more important than mental reality. However,
they give priority to the material world over the world of the mind when they explain human societies. This
doctrine of materialism started and developed from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marx and
Engels presented an evolutionary model of societies based on the materialist perspective. They argued that
societies go through the several stages, from tribalism to feudalism to capitalism to communism. Their work
drew little attention from anthropology in the early twentieth-century. However, since the late 1920s,
anthropologists have increasingly come to depend on materialist explanations for analysing societal
development and some inherent problems of capitalist societies. Anthropologists who heavily rely on the
insights of Marx and Engels include neo-evolutionists, neo-materialists, feminists, and postmodernists.

Cultural materialism emerged as a theoretical movement in the early 1980s along with new historicism, an
American approach to early modern literature, with which it shares much common ground. The term was
coined by Williams, who used it to describe a theoretical blending of leftist culturalism and Marxist analysis.
Cultural materialists deal with specific historical documents and attempt to analyse and recreate the zeitgeist
of a particular moment in history.

Williams viewed culture as a “productive process”, part of the means of production, and cultural materialism
often identifies what he called “residual”, “emergent” and “oppositional” cultural elements. Following in the
tradition of Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci and others, cultural materialists extend the class-based
analysis of traditional Marxism (Neo-Marxism) by means of an additional focus on the marginalized.
Cultural materialists analyse the processes by which hegemonic forces in society appropriate canonical and
historically important texts, such as Shakespeare and Austen, and utilize them in an attempt to validate or
inscribe certain values on the cultural imaginary. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, authors of Political
Shakespeare, have had considerable influence in the development of this movement and their book is
considered to be a seminal text. They have identified four defining characteristics of cultural materialism as
a theoretical device:

1. Historical context
2. Close textual analysis
3. Political commitment
4. Theoretical method

Cultural materialists seek to draw attention to the processes being employed by contemporary power
structures, such as the church, the state or the academy, to disseminate ideology. To do this they explore a
text‘s historical context and its political implications, and then through close textual analysis note the
dominant hegemonic position. They identify possibilities for the rejection and/or subversion of that position.
British critic Graham Holderness defines cultural materialism as a “politicized form of historiography”.
Through its insistence on the importance of an engagement with issues of gender, sexuality, race and class,
cultural materialism has had a significant impact on the field of literary studies, especially in Britain.
Cultural materialists have found the area of Renaissance studies particularly receptive to this type of
analysis. Traditional humanist readings often eschewed consideration of the oppressed and marginalized in
textual readings, whereas cultural materialists routinely consider such groups in their engagement with
literary texts, thus opening new avenues of approach to issues of representation in the field of literary
criticism.
Cultural materialists identify three levels of social systems that constitute a universal pattern: 1)
infrastructure, 2) structure, and 3) superstructure. Infrastructure is the basis for all other levels and includes
how basic needs are met and how it interacts with the local environment. Structure refers to a society‘s
economic, social, and political organization, while superstructure is related to ideology and symbolism.
Cultural materialists like Marvin Harris contend that the infrastructure is the most critical aspect as it is here
where the interaction between culture and environment occurs. All three of the levels are interrelated so that
changes in the infrastructure results in changes in the structure and superstructure, although the changes
might not be immediate. While this appears to be environmental determinism, cultural materialists do not
disclaim that change in the structure and superstructure cannot occur without first change in the
infrastructure. They do however claim that if change in those structures is not compatible with the existing
infrastructure the change is not likely to become set within the culture.
Proponents of alternative anthropological doctrines criticize Cultural Materialism for various reasons.
Marxists criticize Cultural Materialism for ignoring Structure’s influence upon Infrastructure.
Postmodernists believe that reliance upon “Etic” in studying culture is not appropriate, as science is merely a
function of culture. Idealists criticize Cultural Materialism for ignoring variables such as genetics, and

believe “Emic” is more significant than Cultural Materialists allow. Finally, it seems that Materialism is too
simplistic. We must consider intellectual and spiritual influences upon society as well. We are intelligent
creatures who tend to have spiritual inclinations that cannot be accounted for by material means alone.