Cultural Studies

by Rojek, Chris

• ISBN13: 9780745636849
• ISBN10: 0745636845
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-22
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

What has the death of Corporal Patrick D. Tillman of the US Army Rangers in an incident of friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004 got to do with culture? How has the study of ideology, coding, theming and representation by Cultural Studies helped us to understand Reality TV, the Internet, mobile phones, the iPod and leading brands in neat capitalism like Virgin, The Body Shop and Apple? This lively and assured book provides a concise and authoritative critical guide to Cultural Studies. It demonstrates that the field has moved through four moments': the National/Popular, the Textual/Representational, Global/Post Essentialism and Governmentality/Policy. It illustrates the meaning of each of these moments by a discussion of representative texts and concrete examples from popular culture. As such, it achieves a novel and accessible account of the origins and development of the field. The book also shows how the readers personal experience can be systematically situated in cultural forces and used as a resource to clarify how culture works, through the analysis of on-location practice, embodiment, emplacement and context. Packed with illuminating examples, and a clear and compelling prose style, the book is the antidote to abstract, hazy accounts of the meaning and value of Cultural Studies. It is the ideal text for readers new to the field, but it will also be appreciated by established practitioners as good to think with.

Author Biography

Chris Rojek, Professor of Sociology and Culture, Brunel University West London

Table of Contents

Culture Counts	p. 1
The local and the global	p. 2
Media genre and cultural representation	p. 4
The meaning of culture	p. 5
The culture of 'friendly fire'	p. 7
Doing Cultural Studies	p. 10
The case of Reality TV	p. 12
The internet	p. 18
The mobile phone	p. 21
Multiple modernities	p. 22
Culture is Structured Like a Language	p. 24
The imaginary	p. 25
The 3 D's	p. 27
Zeroing in on Culture	p. 29
The origins of Cultural Studies	p. 30
Postwar Cultural Studies	p. 33
Culture is ordinary	p. 37
The Four 'Moments' In Cultural Studies	p. 39
National-Popular (1956-84)	p. 40
Textual-Representational (1958-95)	p. 48
Globalization/Post-Essentialism (1980-)	p. 55
Governmentality/Policy (1985-)	p. 61
Cultural Studies at the crossroads	p. 66
Situating Yourself in Culture	p. 69
Location	p. 70
Embodiment	p. 76
Emplacement	p. 85
Context	p. 92
Modernity and postmodernity	p. 97
Cultural Distortion	p. 101
Cultural representation, ideology and hegemony	p. 103
Ideology	p. 104
Cultures are not monolithic	p. 105
Mechanical reproduction and aesthetic culture	p. 106
Imaginary illusion and symbolic fiction	p. 108
Lara Croft/cyborg culture	p. 110
Neat Capitalism	p. 115
The emergence of neat capitalism	p. 119
The meaning of neat capitalism	p. 122
Generation X and Y	p. 126
The Body Shop	p. 127
Apple	p. 129
Neat capitalism: the basics	p. 131
Neat Publishing	p. 135
Cultural Studies and the anti-establishment	p. 138
The Urbana-Champaign conferences	p. 141
Routledge	p. 143
Concluslon: The 'Long March' of the Cultural Imaginary	p. 151
The market solution	p. 153
The state solution	p. 154
Another culture	p. 157
Notes	p. 162
References	p. 163
Author Index	p. 169
Subject Index	p. 171
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