Cultural Theory: An Anthology - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140518082X ISBN 13: 9781405180825

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010

Synopsis

Cultural Theory: An Anthology is a collection of the essential readings that have shaped and defined the field of contemporary cultural theory * Features a historically diverse and methodologically concise collection of readings including rare essays such as Pierre Bourdieu s Forms of Capital (1986), Gilles Deleuze Postscript on Societies of Control (1992), and Fredric Jameson s Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture (1979) * Offers a radical new approach to teaching and studying cultural theory with material arranged around the central areas of inquiry in contemporary cultural study the status and significance of culture itself, power, ideology, temporality, space and scale, and subjectivity * Section introductions, designed to assist the student reader, provide an overview of each piece, explaining the context in which it was written and offering a brief intellectual biography of the author * A large annotated bibliography of primary and secondary works for each author and topic promotes further research and discussion * Features a useful glossary of critical terms

About this title

Review:

"Even if it does not engage this question of the animal, Cultural Theory constitutes a valuable resource for scholars, as well as a springboard for fur¬ther discussion." (Snell Review, 2011)

Synopsis:

"Cultural Theory: An Anthology" brings together the essential readings that have shaped and defined the field of contemporary cultural theory. The guiding principle of the anthology is to collect those writers and theorists who have produced ideas and concepts in wide use for the analysis and study of culture today. Such concepts are not always narrowly focused on 'culture', but originate out of attempts across a wide range of disciplines to understand contemporary forms of power, ideology, the organization of space and time, and the production of subjectivity. This volume seeks to collect the most influential ideas in each of these areas - ideas that have been put to use in multiple ways in the study of culture. This anthology is distinct from other theory collections in that it does not model the study of culture in terms of distinct 'approaches': semiotics, structuralism, post-structuralism, Marxism and so on.Although some of the readings are, of course, inflected by these movements, intellectual traditions or recurring debates between theoreticians within such supposed subfields do not organize the topics here.

The idea that critical thought or cultural theory is most accurately characterized through a taxonomy of partisan approaches - each one seemingly separate from the others in a way that demands that scholars adopt one or the other framework - seems to us to misrepresent the character of cultural theory today. Nor is the anthology organized around theories related to the study of specific cultural artefacts (literature, film, television, communication technologies, etc) or cultural practices (practices of technology, subcultures, activism, etc.)."Cultural Theory" seeks to understand the complex nature of the formative social, political and cultural antagonisms of our era; it does so at times by giving attention to those practices, activities and artefacts that we have understood to be 'culture,' but also with an awareness of the shifts and deformations that this concept has undergone over the past half century, such that it has become difficult to separate the levels of the social (cultural, economic, political, etc.) from one another in a meaningful or analytically productive way.

In addition to an introductory overview of the field of cultural theory, the anthology will contain a number of pedagogic features that will make it useful to students and scholars alike. Each subsection will include a general introduction and will be followed by an annotated list of suggested readings.The lists will offer the reader approximately ten to fifteen citations of articles and books that comment directly on the texts in the section and offer suggestions for those that develop and follow up on the subsection themes and ideas. Also, each reading will be supplied with an introductory headnote that will provide an overview of the piece, explain the context in which it was written and provide a brief intellectual biography of the author. Editorial notes included in the pieces will provide additional information and context wherever it might be needed. Finally, the anthology will include an index inclusive of all significant concepts, themes, names and places noted in the texts and a glossary of all pertinent terminology found within the volume.

These features aim to make the anthology useful for first-time students in cultural theory as well for those seeking possible points of comparison between texts in different subsections.It is increasingly necessary for anthologies such as this to present its readers with a direction for finding material related to its entries. Internet databases and search engines often leave researchers and students at a loss to locate secondary writings that not only interpret a particular topic but also generate a substantial critique or instantiation of a given problematic. The pedagogic features of this anthology provide an added instructive and archival dimension, which is a valuable touchstone for further explanation, instruction and research.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 140518082X
• ISBN 13: 9781405180825
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 560
• Editor: Szeman Imre, Kaposy Timothy