Postmodernism and Popular Culture - Hardcover

McRobbie, Angela; Mcrobbie, Angela

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415077125 ISBN 13: 9780415077125

Publisher: Routledge, 1994

Synopsis

Postmodernism and Popular Culture brings together eleven recent essays by Angela McRobbie in a collection which deals with the issues which have dominated cultural studies over the last ten years.
A key theme is the notion of postmodernity as a space for social change and political potential. McRobbie explores everyday life as a site of immense social and psychic complexity to which she argues that cultural studies scholars must return through ethnic and empirical work; the sound of living voices and spoken language. She also argues for feminists working in the field to continue to question the place and meaning of feminist theory in a postmodern society. In addition, she examines the new youth cultures as images of social change and signs of profound social transformation.
Bringing together complex ideas about cultural studies today in a lively and accessible format, Angela McRobbie's new collection will be of immense value to all teachers and students of the subject.

About this title

Review:

"brings together thoretical essays on postmodernism and specific analyses of issues in the study of youth culture; the collection includes essays om Susan Sontag and Walter Benjiman, and an interview with Gayatri Spivak. Written over several years, the theoretical essays can be seen as tracing the evolution of debates over the definitions and implications of postmodernism from the 1980s and early 1990s, and are situated within a British cultural and cultural studies milieu.."
- "Contemporary Sociology

Synopsis:

Cultural studies started life as a radical political project, establishing the cultural centrality of everyday life and of popular culture. In a postmodern world where old uncertainties are undermined and identities fragmented, the way forward for those working with popular culture has become less clear. In contrast to more pessimistic readings of the possibilities of postmodernity, Postmodernism and Popular Culture engages with postmodernity as a space for social change and political transformation. Ranging widely over cultural theory and popular culture, Angela McRobbie engages with everyday life as an eclectic and invigorating arena for the interplay of different cultures and identities. She discusses new wasy of thinking developed with the advent of postmodernism, from the 'new times' debate to political strategies after the disintegration of western marxism. She assesses the contribution of key figures in cultural and post-imperial theory - Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - and surveys the invigorating landscape of today's youth and popular culture, from second hand fashion to the rave scene, and from moral panics to teenage magazines.

McRobbie argues throughout for a commitment to cultural studies as an 'undisciplined discipline', reforming and re-inventing itself as circumstances demand, for the importance of ethnographic and empirical work, dealing with living voices and spoken language, and for the necessity for feminists to continually ask questions about the meaning of feminist theory in a postmodern world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0415077125
• ISBN 13: 9780415077125
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 234