What it is and what it isn't: Introducing . . . Cultural Studies

Miller, T. (2006) What it is and what it isn't: Introducing . . . Cultural Studies. In: Miller, T., (ed.) A Companion to Cultural Studies. Wiley-Blackwell, xvii-xxiv.

Abstract

Cultural studies is magnetic.1 It accretes various tendencies that are splintering the human sciences: Marxism, feminism, queer theory, and the postcolonial. The ``cultural'' has become a ``master-trope'' in the humanities, blending and blurring textual analysis of popular culture with social theory, and focusing on the margins of power rather than reproducing established lines of force and authority (Czaplicka et al. 1995: 3). In place of focusing on canonical works of art, governmental leadership, or quantitative social data, cultural studies devotes time to subcultures, popular media, music, clothing, and sport. By looking at how culture is used and transformed by ``ordinary'' and ``marginal'' social groups, cultural studies sees people not simply as consumers, but as potential producers of new social values and cultural languages...

Item Type:	Book Chapter
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/40940

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