Wittgenstein and Popular Culture

by Bernhard Stricker (Editor), Martin Urschel (Editor)

Overview

This volume makes an incisive contribution to the field of philosophy of culture, filling a gap between the relevant scholarship in cultural studies and philosophy. In outlining the potential of Wittgenstein’s philosophy for the study and criticism of popular culture, it aims to establish his work as an alternative or addition to existing approaches (Marxist, post-structuralist, etc.) in the field of popular culture theory. The essays outline the methodological framework of Wittgensteinian approaches to philosophy and conceptual analysis. Each essay demonstrates their merits by looking at particular examples such as analyses of popular films and TV series, detective fiction, comics, or shared practices of fandom. Thus, we encounter varieties of what it means to engage with approaches to criticism of pop in a Wittgensteinian way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781839991318
Publisher:	Anthem Press
Publication date:	03/03/2026
Series:	Anthem Studies in Wittgenstein , #1
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Bernhard Stricker is postdoctoral researcher at TU Dresden, working on the intersections between philosophy and literary/cultural studies.
Martin Urschel is a film scholar and writer whose research focuses on genre conventions in films and television, patterns of (anti-)conformism, and the uses of Wittgenstein’s philosophical method for film and media studies.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Wittgenstein on culture and the popular; Daniel Sharp: What is “pop culture”? Critical Notes towards a Wittgensteinian approach; Oskari Kuusela: Wittgenstein and the foundation of humanistic disciplines; Sara Fortuna: Wittgenstein and the origin of political irony in popular culture: From Italian Thought to Norbert Davis’ novel The Mouse in the Mountain; Section 2: Wittgenstein and popular culture; Sandra Laugier: Wittgenstein, popular culture, and TV series; Sophie Grace-Chappell : Going to the pictures with Roger Scruton; Gunter Gebauer: Language-games and football games; Alexander Berg: Ludwig Wittgenstein and the photography of everyday life; Bernhard Stricker: On ladders, signposts and a message in a bottle: From Wittgenstein to Janosch; Rhiannon Grant: ‘This Is The Way: how canon additions and recreations can help us explore certainty as a sometimes-moveable river bed’; Section 3: Wittgenstein in popular culture; Monika Schmitz-Emans: Wittgenstein in comics and graphic novels; Kai Fischer: Everybody’s on the couch – Wittgenstein’s concept of language games and the failure of therapeutic discourse in the works of David Foster Wallace; Fabian Goppelsröder: Performative Reading: Andreas Ammer‘s Radio Play, Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus logico-philosophicus (2014); Martin Urschel: Wittgensteinian Film Style: Philosophical themes and filmic style in the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man (USA 2009)