Interrogating Cultural Studies: Theory, Politics and Practice - Hardcover

9780745317151: Interrogating Cultural Studies: Theory, Politics and Practice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745317154 ISBN 13: 9780745317151

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2003

This book presents an original and innovative new approach to the field of cultural studies in the form of a series of dynamically executed interviews with some of the world’s leading and some of the most challenging emergent cultural theorists, from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond: Professor Mieke Bal, Professor Catherine Belsey, Professor Steven Connor, Professor Simon Critchley, Professor Thomas Docherty, Dr Jeremy Gilbert, Professor Sue Golding, Professor Lynette Hunter, Dr Martin McQuillan, Professor John Mowitt, Professor Christopher Norris, Professor Griselda Pollock, Professor Adrian Rifkin, Professor Jeremy Valentine, Professor Julian Wolfreys, and Professor Slavoj Zizek are all included here. The book is framed by lively and informative introductions, which introduce the work of these thinkers, and which also introduce the reader to the crucial importance of the issues that the interviews address.

The result is an entertaining and hugely useful introduction to the key ideas in the field, the strengths and problematic weaknesses of cultural studies as a discipline, allowing the reader to chart its development, and to identify emerging trends. This book is ideal for students of cultural studies and the interdisciplinary arts and humanities, and will be of great interest to teachers and researchers working within a very wide range of areas of cultural studies.

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Review:

"In his introduction, Bowman suggests two rather different purposes for his book. The first is to determine where cultural studies is today. Understandably, the concern is whether "institutionalising" the field, through new degree programs and academic departments, has blunted its political thrust. The second purpose for the book, according to Bowman, is to provide an introduction to the field of cultural studies, a means for individuals to get a sense of what the discipline is all about. To achieve his purposes, Bowman has collected essays in the form of interviews with 14 academics within, or associated with, cultural studies. The essays offer a fairly wide range of opinions relative to the first purpose, along with several essays that hardly get around to the topic because the writers seem so caught up with themselves. The second purpose is less successfully achieved, although the essays by Catherine Belsey and Griselda Pollock are very informative. Summing Up: Optional. Accessible, though of limited use, to upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty."-- J. L. Culross, Eastern Kentucky University in CHOICE

From the Author:

This collection juxtaposes some of the most interesting and challenging thinkers from in and around (both for and against) cultural studies, all of whom address some of the most central, crucial, enlivening and vexed questions of this controversial subject, in ways that are novel, innovative, and sure to be of interest and importance to both students and researchers working within the interdisciplinary arts and humanities. The contributors are: Catherine Belsey, Mieke Bal, Martin McQuillan, Simon Critchley, Chris Norris, Adrian Rifkin, Griselda Pollock, Jeremy Gilbert, Julian Wolfreys, John Mowitt, Jeremy Valentine, Steven Connor, Thomas Docherty, and Lynette Hunter.

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