The subject of cultural studies has not yet been fully defined, since it is a relatively new and still-evolving area, although various schools of thought have sought to claim it as their own. This book is designed as a pedagogic resource which offers a variety of answers to the question it poses. It brings together some major writers in the international field, and introduces the student to debates about the evolution of cultural studies, discusses various different strands within the subject, and considers future directions.
The evolution of cultural studies; cultural studies; two paradigms; the centre for contemporary cultural studies; overcoming resistance to cultural studies; what is cultural studies anyway?; British cultural studies and television; banality in cultural studies; the future of cultural studies; the circulation of cultural studies; the problem of American cultural studies; feminism and cultural studies; discipline and vanish - feminism, the resistance to theory, and the politics of cultural studies; pessimism, optimism, pleasure - the future of cultural studies; culture and communication - towards an ethnographic critique of media consumption in the transnational media system; feminism and cultural studies; always already cultural studies - academic conferences and a manifesto; the Americanization of cultural studies; black studies, cultural studies - performative acts; putting policy into cultural studies; "It works for me" - British cultural studies, Australian cultural studies, Australian film; race, culture and communications - looking backward and foreward at cultural studies; Australian cultural studies.
