Further Reading
Chapter 1: Introducing Popular
Culture
Chapter 2: The
History of Popular Culture
Chapter 3: Representation
and the Construction of Social Reality
Chapter 4: The Production
of Popular Culture
Chapter 5: The Consuming
Life
Chapter 6: Identity and the
Body
Chapter 7: Identity and Community
Chapter 8: Subcultures and
Countercultures
Chapter 9: Globalization
and Popular Culture
Chapter 10: A Brief History
of Cultural Studies
Chapter 1: Introducing
Popular Culture
No recommended readings
Chapter 2: The History
of Popular Culture
Cunningham, Hugh. Leisure
in the Industrial Revolution. London: Croom Helm, 1980.
History of the evolution of
leisure in Britain from 1780-1880 that follows E.P Thompson in viewing
leisure as a significant vehicle of class consciousness. Challenges
dominant view of culture that sees it flowing from the ruling classes
downward, emphasizing the resilience and influence of traditional forms
of popular recreation.
Hobsbawm, Eric. Industry
and Empire: An Economic History of Britain Since 1750 . London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1968.
Seminal historical account
of the Industrial Revolution that focuses on the relationship between
industry and imperialism and the effects of both on British culture
and politics. Traces the rise and decline of Britain as a global power
between 1750 and the late 20 th -century.
Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/Lowbrow:
The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge MA: Harvard
UP, 1988.
Beginning from the premise
that Shakespeare once had broad currency across class boundaries, traces
the evolution of cultural hierarchy in nineteenth century America. Analyzes
the role of ideology in establishing cultural institutions such as the
theatre and museum as elite entertainments, while also documenting ongoing
struggles for the democratization of culture.
Malcomson, Robert W. Popular Recreations
in English Society 1700-1850 . Cambridge UK: Cambridge UP, 1973.
This study of recreation in
eighteenth-century Britain documents the gradual erosion of traditional
forms of entertainment as a consequence of processes of industrialization
and changing class relations. Drawing extensively on primary sources,
Malcomson offers a detailed picture of eighteenth-century rural life,
with accounts of traditional recreations such as blood sports, dancing
and festivals.
Thompson, E.P. The Making
of the English Working Class. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.
Classic study of English working-class
society in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, this is the first
major study of history "from the bottom up." Differs from traditional
approaches in its close attention to the details of everyday life. Though
clouded by nostalgia at times, this remains an important work for its
illumination of once-hidden aspects of English life such as working-men's
clubs, pubs and the popular press.
Chapter 3: Representation
and the Construction of Social Reality
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies.
Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Granada, 1973.
Classic collection of essays
applying structuralist analysis to aspects of French popular and media
culture from wrestling to magazine ads to news photos. Seeks to delve
beneath the surface of culture-the "decorative display," in Barthes'
words, "of what-goes-without-saying ," to uncover hidden ideologies
or "myths."
Berger, John. About Looking.
New York: Pantheon, 1980.
Expanding on the insights
of his popular book and BBC-television series Ways of Seeing ,
this collection analyzes selected forms of visual culture including
oil painting, photography and zoos. Locates different kinds of visual
perception in specific social and historical contexts with the aim of
highlighting its ideological aspects.
Hall, Stuart. Representation:
Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices London: SAGE and
Open UP, 1997.
One of a series of textbooks
prepared for popular culture courses taught through the U.K.'s Open
University. Readings include studies of diverse representational practices-the
displaying of "other" cultures in museums, the construction of racial
stereotypes in print and visual media, and photographic representation
of masculinity--as well as accessible explanations of different theories
of representation. Contains a useful appendix of key articles and bibliography.
Mirzoeff, Nicholas, ed. The
Visual Culture Reader. London: Routledge, 1999.
A collection of essays by
contemporary cultural critics and theorists that explores the wide range
of visual experiences in contemporary culture. The book is divided into
fifteen thematic sections which explore topics such as virtual reality,
visuality and war, the function of museums, and gender and sexuality.
Radway, Janice. Reading
the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill
NC: U of North Carolina Press, 1984.
Study of the romance focused
on individual readers' responses. Challenges standard interpretations
of romance novels as anti-feminist trash by highlighting the way these
books offer readers a means of both escape from and resistance to traditional
patriarchal relationships.
Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam.
Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London:
Routledge, 1994.
Explores the politics of race
and multiculturalism in popular culture, with a particular focus on
film. Emphasizes importance of going beyond representation to consider
issues such as casting and media ownership. Looks critically at mainstream
Hollywood cinema, as well as Third World films and indigenous media.
Sturken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright.
Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford:
Oxford UP, 2001
Useful overview of different
theories of visual culture from semiotics to audience-reception, focussing
on diverse forms of visual media: fine art, television and film, as
well as visual data in fields such as medicine and the law. Pays particular
attention to the dominance of visual media in contemporary culture,
and its relationship to broader social forces such as consumerism and
globalization.
Chapter 4: The Production
of Popular Culture
Dorland, Michael, ed. The
Culture Industries in Canada: Problems, Policies, and Prospects.
Toronto: Lorimer, 1996.
An interdisciplinary collection
of essays that deal with the culture industries in Canada. The thirteen
essays in this collection are divided into four sections: "Print Industries,"
"Sound Industries," "Image/Date Industries," and finally, "Policy."
The collection also considers the approaches that have been taken in
the study of the culture industries in Canada.
Ellis, Jack C. A History
of Film. Fourth Edition. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon,
1995.
A comprehensive, readable
overview of the history of cinema. Addresses the history of various
national cinemas, as well as specific genres (documentary, experimental,
etc.). An accessible text for students interested in learning more about
film.
Hesmondhalgh, David. The
Cultural Industries. London: Sage, 2002.
Comprehensive overview of
the contemporary cultural industries, focusing on transformations and
changes in cultural regulation, ownership, production and consumption,
and economics, as well as changes in cultural forms and genres. The
book begins with an overview of various approaches to the study of culture
and the cultural industries.
Nealon, Jeffrey T., and Caren
Irr, ed. Rethinking the Frankfurt School: Alternative Legacies of
Cultural Critique. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
2002.
A collection of academic essays
that reexamines the work of the Frankfurt School from a variety of intellectual
and disciplinary perspectives. The book includes essays by notable figures
such as Agnes Heller, Andreas Huyssen, Fredric Jameson, and Douglas
Kellner, who argue for the continued relevance of the Frankfurt School.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Movie
Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What
Movies We Can See. Chicago:
A Capella Books, 2000.
A polemic about the limits
and problems of the contemporary U.S. film industry, especially with
respect to what makes it (and doesn't make it) onto film screens in
North America. Rosenbaum, the respected film critic for The Chicago
Reader , provides an insider's perspective on the way that movies
are developed, distributed and promoted, and gives insight into the
great films we aren't able to see.
Chapter 5: The Consuming
Life
Bocock, Robert. Consumption.
New York: Routledge, 1994.
A useful overview of various
sociological approaches to the study of consumption and the development
of practices of consumption over the past one hundred and fifty years.
Part of a series of books that provide overviews and introductions to
important concepts in sociology.
Clark, David B., Marcus Doel
and Kate M. L. Housiaux, ed. The Consumption Reader. New York:
Routledge, 2003.
A new reader that offers "an
essential selection of the best work on the Consumer Society." True
to its name, the book provides a useful overview of both the history
of consumer societies as well as of the varied theoretical approaches
that has been taken towards the study of consumption.
Gottdiener, Mark, ed. New
Forms of Consumption. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
A collection of essays with
two main purposes: first, to consider the impact of cultural studies
on the study of consumption, and second, to consider a variety of new
forms of consumptive practices, such as sex tourism and Internet consumption.
McCracken, Grant. Culture
and Consumption. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Culture and Consumption
provides an accessible overview of the processes that shape the
creation of consumer goods and consumer behaviour. Beginning with an
account of the history of consumer society, McCracken discusses topics
such as advertising, ownership, collection, fashion and the expressive
properties of clothing.
Scanlon, Jennifer, ed. The
Gender and Consumer Culture Reader. New York: New York University
Press, 2000.
A collection of readings and
archival materials that explore the relationship between gender and
consumerism. Challenging some of the traditional connections that have
been made between gender and consumerism, the materials examine topics
from female shoplifting to gay men and domestic space.
Schor, Juliet B. The Overspent
American: Upscaling, Downshifting and the New Consumer . New York:
Basic Books, 1998.
Schor criticizes the dominance
of materialism and consumerism in contemporary society by exploring
the disconnection between rising incomes and consumers' sense of well-being.
Increased consumption has made upper and middle-class consumers less
and less happy; the book describes how this has come about and
discusses downshifters" who have opted out of the cycle of working longer
and harder to acquire more and more things.
-. Do Americans Buy Too
Much? Boston: Beacon Press, 2000.
In many respects, this is a
shorter, pithier version of Schor's The Overspent American .
Part of a series of short books addressing fundamental political and
social problems of contemporary society, Schor's critique of the evils
of American private consumption is followed by short responses from
economist Robert Frank and others.
Schor, Juliet B., and Douglas
Holt, ed. The Consumer Society Reader . New York: The New Press,
2000.
Exceptional introduction to
major theories and debates concerning consumer society. The reader consists
of excerpts from classic statements (e.g., Marx, Veblen, Adorno and
Horkheimer) and more recent writing and scholarship (e.g., Pierre Bourdieu,
bell hooks, Thomas Frank).
Chapter 6: Identity
and the Body
Bordo, Susan. Unbearable
Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body . Berkeley: U of California
P, 1993.
An analysis of the significance
of body image in shaping women's identity, desire and agency. Following
a clear and concise discussion of how the body has been perceived historically,
the book focuses on present-day body issues such as anorexia and bulimia,
exercise and the beauty industry. Considers the role of media such
as film and advertising inpromoting unrealizable and oppressive body
images for women.
Butler, Judith. Bodies that
Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge, 1999.
Together with Butler's earlier
work Gender Trouble , this book explores the role of culture
in defining not just gender but sex and sexuality. Drawing on feminist,
poststructuralist, psychoanalytic and queer theories, Butler challenges
conventional understandings of identity and subjecthood, ositing instead
a more unstable and potentially subversive form of agency defined by
performance.
du Gay, Paul, Jessica Evans,
and Peter Redman. Identity: A Reader. London: SAGE, 2000.
A collection of influential
essays on the topic of identity by writers such as Louis Althusser,
Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. The collection
is divided into three parts-"Language, Ideology and Discourse," "Psychoanalysis
and Psycho-Social Relations" and "Sociology and History"-reflecting
different theoretical approaches to the subject.
Featherstone, Mike. Body
Modification. London: SAGE, 2000.
A collection of essays focussing
on practices of body modification from exercise to body piercing, cosmetic
surgery, tattooing and prosthetics. Surveying both everyday cultural
practices and the experimentation of performance artists such as Orlan
and Stelarc, the essays explore the relationship between body and human
identity with a particular focus on the social and political implications
of new body-modifying technologies.
Giddens, Anthony. Modernity
and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity, 1991.
Examines the significance
of identity in the context of changes associated with modern society.
Suggests that new emphasis on self-identity, in conjunction with the
decline of traditional institutions and authorities, presents individuals
with an unprecedented freedom of choice that can be seen in terms of
both liberating opportunity and terrifying responsibility.
Shilling, Chris. The Body
and Social Theory. London: SAGE, 1993.
Examines the significance
of the body in contemporary Western culture with particular emphasis
on how it is defined by practices like diet, sports, "body projects,"
and new reproductive technologies. Offers a useful overview of different
theoretical approaches to the body.
Woodward, Kathryn, ed. Identity
and Difference. London: SAGE, 2000.
One of a series of textbooks
prepared for popular culture courses taught through the U.K.'s Open
University. As well as offering general theories of identity, readings
examine questions relating to specific identities including queer identity,
motherhood and diasporic identities. Contains a useful appendix of key
articles and bibliography.
Chapter 7: Identity and
Community
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined
Communities. London: Verso, 1983.
Influential study of the historical
evolution of the nation as an imagined community of geographically disparate
people, connected by a common language and print media-
specifically the novel and
the national newspaper. Though it has met with criticism for oversimplifying
the process by which the idea of the nation was transported from Europe
to the Third World, it remains an essential work for understanding the
development of nations and nationalism.
Bhabha, Homi. Nation and
Narration. London: Routledge, 1990.
Collection of essays examining
the significance of nations and nationalism in the postcolonial world,
and the role of literature in defining and challenging national identities.
Many essays emphasize contradictory ideas of the nation as rooted
in history/tradition and as a living process defined by the democratic
will of its citizens.
Hall, Stuart, and Paul du Gay,
ed. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: SAGE, 1996.
Collection focusing on identity
as a site of crisis in contemporary society. Individual essays focus
on questions relating to race, gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality.
Introductory essay by Hall, "Who Needs Identity?" offers a difficult
but compelling account of why identity as means of self and group definition
is both essential and suspect.
hooks, bell. Yearning: Race,
Gender and Cultural Politics. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1990.
Critical analysis of race
and gender in popular and media culture. Cautions against tendency of
postmodernist criticism to reduce material conditions to questions of
text, while arguing for the importance of cultural critique as a means
of highlighting connections between the politics of representation nd
structures of social inequality.
Mackey, Eva. The House
of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada.
Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002.
An examination of Canadian
national identity with an emphasis on issues of racial and cultural
difference. Based on interviews and analysis of popular culture and
policy documents, this book highlights the contradictions of official
multiculturalism, and the realities of race and cultural prejudice that
lie beneath myths of Canadian tolerance.
Said, Edward. Orientalism.
New York: Vintage, 1979.
Influential study of the construction
of a stereotypical "Orient" in conjunction with practices of European
imperialism. Employing Foucault's theory of discourse, argues that
the production of a mythical Orient as an object of Western knowledge
helped to secure and legitimate Western control over actual Eastern
cultures. Subject to extensive criticism and debate, this remains
a key text for the study of race and (post)colonial culture.
Said, Edward. Culture and
Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993.
A follow-up to Orientalism
, Said concentrates here on responses to the system of Western
domination outlined in is his earlier book. The first half of the book
considers Western literary and cultural representations of the Third
World; the second part looks in detail at cultural and historical reactions
to and struggles against Western imperialism.
Chapter 8: Subcultures and
Countercultures
Austin, Joe and Michael Nevin
Willard, ed. Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth-Century
America. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
A collection of essays which
addresses American youth cultures, both throughout history and in the
present day, and from a diverse range of perspectives. Topics include
graffiti, Chicano low riding, fandom, hip hop, and Boy Scouts and heroism.
Debord, Guy. Society of the
Spectacle. New York: Verso, 1996.
Influential 1967 Situationist
manifesto that attempts to capture the intensified role of images in
capitalist society and their impact of contemporary society as a whole.
Written in 221 short, evocative theses, it is intended as a call to
arms to bring about a fundamental change in society-a call that was
answered in the May 1968 student revolution in Paris.
Hall, Stuart and Tony Jefferson,
ed. Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain.
New York: Routledge, 1993.
Originally published in 1975,
this important early collection of essays in the field of cultural studies
focuses on the cultural and historical origins of British youth culture.
Includes essays by scholars who would become important figures in cultural
studies, including Paul Willis, Dick Hebdige, Angela McRobbie, and Simon
Frith.
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The
Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979.
A classic of cultural studies,
Subculture explores the music-centered youth subcultures in
postwar Britain (from teddy boys to punks), investigating in particular
the complex function of "style" in defining and distinguishing contemporary
subcultures.
Lasn, Kalle. Culture Jam:
How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge --And Why We
Must. New York: Quill, 1999.
Founder of the Media Foundation
and publisher of the magazine Adbusters , over the past decade
Lasn has waged an unrelenting war on Western consumerism and the impact
of media culture on our "mental environment." Culture Jam presents
the rationale and theories that inform his strong views about the problems
of contemporary society and what we need to do to change things.
Marcus, Greil. Lipstick Traces:
A Secret History of the 20 th Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1989.
Unfairly maligned by some scholars,
Marcus situates punk within a longer tradition of political and aesthetic
avant-gardes, including surrealism, Dadaism and Situationism. Characterized
by Marcus' euphoric, highly-stylized writing; few writers can convey
the power and urgency of pop music with quite the verve of Marcus, as
evidenced (for example) by his reading of Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner."
Muggleton, David. Inside Subculture:
The Postmodern Meaning of Style. New York: Berg, 2000.
Dense book that investigates
the postmodern attributes of participants in various subcultures in
Brighton and East Sussex, UK. Organized around interviews with these
participants, Muggleton focuses on the use of dress and style in defining
contemporary subcultures.
Redhead, Steve, Derek Wynne and
Justin O'Connor, ed. The Clubcultures Reader: Readings in Popular
Cultural Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
A collection of essays on
contemporary youth cultures and music (e.g., rave, house, disco). The
Clubcultures Reader is distinguished from other similar volumes
by its focus on the importance of ethnographic work in the study of
popular work. Consolidates and extends the academic work which begin
with (for example), Hall and Jefferson, Resistance through Rituals
.
Ross, Andrew and Tricia Rose,
ed. Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture . New York:
Routledge, 1994.
Celebrated collection of essays
and interviews that deals with the power of popular music, especially
as it is used in defining and producing youth subcultures. Wide-ranging
and eclectic, the collection deals with topics from rave to rap, college
rock to Brazilian funk.
Roszak, Theodore. The Making
of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its
Youthful Opposition. London: Faber and Faber, 1970.
Classic account of the sixties
counterculture, which is noted for exploring the links between student
radicals and hippie dropouts. For Roszak, both groups attempt in different
ways to reject the dominance of post-war technocratic corporate culture.
Shares similarities with the work of Herbert Marcuse, whose work Roszak
analyzes in the book.
Chapter 9: Globalization
and Popular Culture
Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity
at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1996.
An expansion and development
of ideas first outlined in the author's influential 1990 essay "Disjuncture
and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy." Appadurai proposes ways
of understanding cultural processes in the era of globalization that
do not rely on the long-standing link between culture and geography.
Barlow, Maude and Tony Clarke.
Global Showdown. Toronto: Stoddart, 2001.
Analysis and overview of the
new brand of citizen activism that emerged out of the anti-globalization
demonstrations in the 1990s. Barlow is the national chairperson of the
Council of Canadians; Clarke is director of the Polaris Institute of
Canada.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization:
The Human Consequences. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
A great introduction to the
impact of globalization on contemporary human experience. Bauman argues
that globalization has produced two new classes of human beings: those
for whom globalization introduces greater freedoms and mobility, and
those who are either not allowed to move (e.g., tighter border controls
and limits on immigrations) or are forced to move involuntarily (e.g.,
economic and political refugees).
Giddens, Anthony. Runaway
World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our Lives. New York: Routledge,
2000.
Giddens, a prominent sociologist
and advisor to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, discusses the problems and
possibilities introduced by globalization in a short book based on a
series of lectures delivered in 1999. The analysis is suggestive rather
than detailed, but valuable nonetheless.
Gray, John. False Dawn: The
Delusions of Global Capitalism. New York: New Press, 1999.
A critique of the present
global economic system offered (unusually) from a scholar on the right.
Gray, an early influence on former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
and the British New Right, provides a blistering argument against unfettered
free markets, pointing to the various social ills and traumas that globalization
has produced.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri.
Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Hardt and Negri present a
compelling account of the emerging global political order. Empire
is distinct from other accounts of globalization because of its
emphasis on the multiple sites at which political power is exercised
today, as well as by its insistence on the new possibilities for resistance
created by globalization. Difficult, but essential.
Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David
Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton. Global Transformations: Politics,
Economics and Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
A comprehensive (though stiffly-written)
survey of all of the major issues associated with globalization, focusing
on politics, economics, and culture. The first two large topics are
better addressed than the last. While the book is designed to be authoritative,
its attempt to bring clarity to discussions of globalization raises
at least as many questions as it answers.
Jameson, Fredric and Masao Miyoshi,
ed., The Cultures of Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 1998.
Influential collection of
essays that emerged from a major conference held at Duke University
in 1994. The essays explore the cultural consequences of globalization,
focusing on the intersections between global culture, politics and economics.
Includes essays by Noam Chomsky, filmmaker Barbara Trent, and Indian
critic Geeta Kapur.
Klein, Naomi. No Logo. New
York: Picador, 2000.
One of the best-known contemporary
analyses of consumer capitalism, No Logo explores the global
expansion and intensification of consumerism, as well as the varied
responses and challenges to it by activists, students and ordinary citizens.
Robertson, Roland. Globalization:
Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage, 1992.
A comprehensive overview of
globalization, which focuses on cultural processes and phenomena. Robertson
argues that in the era of globalization culture has become essential
to thinking about social, political and economic processes-even if these
latter categories are the ones more commonly thought to be central to
discussions of globalization.
Scholte, Jan Aart. Globalization:
A Critical Introduction. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2000.
Accessible, useful introduction
to globalization written by a major researcher in the field. While it
has relatively little information on globalization's impact on popular
culture, it is nevertheless a fine resource for students interested
in learning more about the complex phenomena that have been associated
with globalization.
Zemans, Joyce. "Canadian Cultural
Policy in a Globalized World." Canadian Review of American Studies
27.3 (1997): 111-25.
Interesting analysis of the
challenges faced by the Canadian government in establishing cultural
policy in an era in which national borders are becoming increasingly
difficult to patrol. Zemans is a former president of the Canada Council.
Chapter 10: Why Study
Popular Culture? A Brief History of Cultural Studies
During, Simon. The Cultural Studies
Reader. Second Edition. London: Routledge, 2000.
Collection of seminal works
in cultural studies by theorists such as Raymond Williams, Theodor Adorno,
Stuart Hall, and Judith Butler, along with useful introductions to each.
Includes sections on Theory and Method; Nationalism, Postcolonialism
and Globalization; Sexuality and Gender; Ethnicity and Multiculturalism;
and Science and Cyberculture.
Easthope, Anthony. Literary
Into Cultural Studies . London: Routledge, 1991.
Important, if dated, examination
of the transformation of literary studies into cultural studies. Easthope
links literary and cultural studies by seeing the latter as an extension
of the former: the high cultural texts studied by literary scholars
are transformed into cultural studies by the latter's attention to all
cultural forms as "texts" or "signifying practices."
Fiske, John. Understanding
Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 1989.
Along with Reading the
Popular , which focusses on more specific case studies, this book
examines the production and consumption of popular culture from TV to
fashion. Deals with the way in which people appropriate the products
of commercial culture to create their own "meanings, pleasures and identities."
Freccero, Carla. Popular Culture:
An Introduction. New York: New York UP, 1999.
Helpful introduction to the
study of popular culture that focusses less on theory than on the examination
of specific pop cultural phenomena. Topics examined include cyberpunk,
drag queens and the representation of race in popular cinema. Includes
a glossary, sample syllabus and extensive bibliography.
Grossberg, Lawrence, Cary Nelson
and Paula Treichler. Cultural Studies . London: Routledge,
1992.
Based on one of the first
international cultural studies conferences, this collection contains
essays on a wide range of topics, from the gender politics of Hustler
to slash fiction to the future of cultural studies. Though some
of the essays assume an expert audience, the collection is a useful
introduction to the range of topics and approaches encompassed by cultural
studies.
Hartley, John, Martin Montgomery
and Mark Brennan, Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key
Concepts. London: Routledge, 2002.
Detailed glossary of terms
relevant to media and cultural studies. Covers major terms, theorists
and approaches, with helpful cross-referencing and suggestions for further
reading
McRobbie, Angela. Postmodernism
and Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
Collection of essays focusing
on debates within cultural studies as well as concrete examples of youth
culture such as teen magazines, second-hand fashion and rave. Emphasizes
the role of race and gender identity politics in challenging atraditional
cultural studies focus on class.
Naremore, James, and Patrick Brantlinger,
ed. Modernity and Mass Culture. Bloomington IN: Indiana UP,
1991.
Influential collection of essays
by a notable group of scholars which explores the shift from modernity
to postmodernity and its impact on the arts and culture. Essays cover
topics such as home entertainment, television and mass-market literature.
Niedzviecki, Hal. We Want Some
Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture. Toronto:
Penguin, 2000.
Idiosyncratic, non-academic
investigation of contemporary mass culture and the uses that various
groups and individuals make of it. Niedzviecki, editor of Broken
Pencil , a magazine that deals with 'zines, and a frequent commentator
on pop culture, writes with an insiders' knowledge of the dilemmas of
plundering pop culture to try to create genuine, authentic forms of
culture in its wake.
Thornham, Sue. Feminist Theory
and Cultural Studies: Stories of Unsettled Relations. London: Arnold,
2000.
Feminist approach to cultural
studies that offers a historical reading of how feminist theory has
shaped cultural studies (and vice versa). Demonstrates the value of
a more feminist-inflected cultural studies approach to topics in contemporary
popular culture such as consumerism, subcultures and technologies of
the body.
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