This hands-on survey introduces students to the diverse fields that comprise cultural studies, from visual culture to popular music and new media. It can be used as a standalone text or is the perfect companion volume to Ryan's Cultural Studies: An Anthology. Provides a comprehensive overview of the field, from cyberculture and digital media to fashion and new formulations of gender identity Includes student exercises and activities for each chapter Teaches cultural analysis through practical examples and application Gives students across disciplines the tools to become practitioners of Cultural Studies and active cultural analysts The perfect companion volume to Ryan's Cultural Studies Anthology (2008)
At a time of global uncertainties and erosion of liberties, how will cultural studies clear a space for a parallel intellectual and political engagement with human rights practice? How will human rights thinking be liberated from its doctrinal approach to ethics and legal justice? This book forges an alliance between cultural studies and human rights scholarships, to help us better understand the changing and complex political context that continuously shapes contemporary violence. To date, interdisciplinary dialogue or institutional collaboration remains rare across the two domains, resulting in critical interpretive work appearing too vacuous at times and institutional legal work often trapped in doctrinalism. By opening a door for a new and engaging scholarship, this book will re-ignite debates and passions within communication and critical cultural studies in the search for global justice. This book was originally published as a special issue of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.
In recent years `culture' has become a central concern in a wide range of fields and disciplines. This book introduces the main substantive and theoretical strands of this `turn to culture' through the medium of a particular case study: that of the Sony Walkman. Using the example of the Walkman, the book indicates how and why cultural practices and institutions have come to play such a crucial part in our lives, and introduces some of the central ideas, concepts and methods of analysis involved in conducting cultural studies.
Reading Television was the first book to push the boundaries of television studies beyond the insights offered by cultural studies and textual analysis, creating a vibrant new field of study. Using the tools and techniques in this book, it is possible for everyone with a television set to analyze both the programmes, and the culture which produces them. In this edition, Hartley reflects on recent developments in television studies, and includes suggestions for further reading. His new foreword underlines the continuing relevance of this foundational text in the study of contemporary culture.
This book addresses the notorious split between the two fields of cultural studies and political economy. Drawing on the works of Harold Innis, Theodor Adorno, Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, E.P. Thompson, and other major theorists in the two fields, Robert E. Babe shows that political economy can be reconciled to certain aspects of cultural studies, particularly with regards to cultural materialism. Uniting the two fields has proven to be a complex undertaking though it makes practical sense, given the close interaction between political economy and cultural studies. Babe examines the evolution of cultural studies over time and its changing relationship with political economy. The intersections between the two fields center around three subjects: the cultural biases of money, the time/space dialectic, and the dialectic of information.
This short volume is an ideal starting point for anyone wanting to learn about, arguably, the most famous anthropologist of the twentieth century. “Since her death, a steady drip of books about Mead, one of the most significant women in twentieth century social science and American society, has appeared, some interesting, many quite a bit less so. While Shankman’s biography makes use of them, it nevertheless stands out among the better ones, not only for its well-informed and balanced view of Mead, but also for its concision.”—Times Literary Supplement Tracing Mead’s career as an ethnographer, as the early voice of public anthropology, and as a public figure, this elegantly written biography links the professional and personal sides of her career. The book looks at Mead’s early career through the end of World War II, when she produced her most important anthropological works, as well as her role as a public figure in the post-war period, through the 1960s until her death in 1978. The criticisms of Mead are also discussed and analyzed. From the introduction: After her death, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.... On the other side of the world, Mead’s passing was remembered in a very different context. On the island of Manus off the coast of New Guinea, the people of Pere village also mourned her death. Mead first studied the people of Pere in the late 1920s, returning in the 1950s with further visits thereafter. Over a span of five decades, she touched their lives, and they touched hers. Such was Mead’s stature that they commemorated her death with a ceremony befitting a great leader.
A revised and updated new edition of this best-selling introduction to the study of contemporary popular culture. The book presents an accessible introduction to the range of theories and methods which have been used to study contemporary popular culture. Doing this, it also provides a map of the development of cultural studies through discussion of its most influential approaches. Organised around a series of case studies, each chapter focuses on a different media form and presents a critical overview of the methodology for the actual study of popular culture. Individual chapters cover topics such as television, fiction, film, newspapers and magazines, popular music, consumption (television, fan culture and shopping), and the culture of globalisation.For students new to the field, the book provides instantly usable theories and methods; for those more familiar with the procedures and politics of cultural studies, the book provides a succinct and accessible overview.The third edition has been revised, rewritten and expanded throughout, including a revised and updated Bibliography. More specifically, the book now includes new sections on print media and celebrity, communities in cyberspace, and a Postscript on the circuit of culture.
