Cultural Theory: An Anthology / Edition 1

by Imre Szeman, Timothy Kaposy

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781405180825
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	04/26/2010
Pages:	548
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Imre Szeman is Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is the author of Zones of Instability: Literature, Postcolonialism and the Nation (2003); co-author of Popular Culture: A User's Guide (2004, 2009); and co-editor of Pierre Bourdieu: Fieldwork in Culture (2000), the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (2005), and Canadian Cultural Studies: A Reader (2009).

Timothy Kaposy is Assistant Professor in the Cultural Studies Program at George Mason University, Virginia.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

Part 1 Reforming Culture.

Introduction to Part I.

1. Matthew Arnold, "Sweetness and Light" (1869).

2. Thorstein Veblen, "Conspicuous Consumption" (1899).

3. Herbert Marcuse, "The Affirmative Character of Culture" (1937).

4. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, "The Culture Industry" (1944).

5. Raymond Williams, "Culture Is Ordinary" (1958).

6. Fredric Jameson, "Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture" (1979).

7. Stuart Hall, "Notes on Deconstructing 'the Popular'" (1981).

8. Pierre Bourdieu, "The Forms of Capital" (1986).

Additional Readings.

Part 2 Power.

Introduction to Part 2.

9. Karl Marx, Preface to "A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy" (1859).

10. Carl Schmitt, "Definition of Sovereignty" (1922).

11. Frantz Fanon, "The Trials and Tribulations of National Consciousness" (1961).

12. Michel Foucault, "Society Must Be Defended, 17 March 1976" (1976).

13. Michel Foucault, "Method" (1976).

14. Gilles Deleuze, "Postscript on the Societies of Control" (1992).

15. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, "Biopolitical Production" (2000).

Additional Readings.

Part 3 Ideology.

Introduction to Part 3.

16. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "The German Ideology" (1845).

17. Georg Lukács, "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat" (1923).

18. Antonio Gramsci, "Hegemony" (1929).

19. Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970).

20. Stuart Hall, "Recent Developments in Theories of Language and Ideology" (1980).

21. Slavoj Zizek, "The Spectre of Ideology" (1989).

Additional Readings.

Part 4 Space and Scale.

Introduction to Part 4.

22. Dick Hebdige, "The Function of Subculture" (1979).

23. Michel de Certeau, "Walking in the City" (1980).

24. Benedict Anderson, "Imagined Communities" (1983).

25. Arjun Appadurai, "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy" (1990).

26. Doreen Massey, "Politics and Space/Time" (1992).

27. David Harvey, "The Body as an Accumulation Strategy" (2000).

28. Mike Davis, "Planet of Slums" (2004).

Additional Readings.

Part 5 Temporality.

Introduction to Part 5.

29. Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" (1977).

30. Raymond Williams, "Dominant, Residual, and Emergent" (1977).

31. Jean-Francois Lyotard, "Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?" (1979).

32. Fernand Braudel, "History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée" (1980).

33. Fredric Jameson, "Periodizing the 60s" (1984).

34. Roberto Schwarz, "Brazilian Culture: Nationalism by Elimination" (1992).

35. Ranajit Guha, "A Dominance without Hegemony and Its Historiography" (1997).

Additional Readings.

Part 6 Subjectivity.

Introduction to Part 6.

36. Frantz Fanon, "The Lived Experience of the Black Man" (1952).

37. Jacques Lacan, "The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason since Freud" (1957).

38. Luce Irigaray, "This Sex Which Is Not One" (1977).

39. Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto" (1985).

40. Judith Butler, "Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire" (1990).

41. Paul Gilroy, "It Ain't Where You're From, It's Where You're At" (1990).

42. Eve Sedgwick, "Axiomatic" (1990).

Additional Readings.

Glossary of Terms.

Sources.

Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This anthology is an extraordinarily useful toolbox for teaching cultural theory.  But more than that, by organizing the texts around a series of core concepts, it not only provides students with an excellent introduction but also gives scholars a fresh perspective on the field."
—Michael Hardt, Duke University

“Cultural theory has expanded its influence immensely over the past two decades. Now we have a comprehensive selection of the best and most influential writers in the field, ably compiled and introduced by expert editors.”
—Toby Miller, University of California, Riverside

“The introductory chapters for each section are uniformly cogent and well written, and the choices of material are judicious and at times refreshingly unexpected. Cultural Theory: An Anthology is set to become the standard classroom text in the field.”
— Nicholas Lawrence, University of Warwick

“Essential reading for all students of culture, whatever their disciplinary background.”
—Nick Couldry, Goldsmiths, University of London

Editorial Reviews

"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)

From the Publisher