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Culture and Society
An Introduction to Cultural Studies



December 2006 | 256 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
David Oswell has written a comprehensive introduction to cultural studies that guides the reader through the field's central foundations and its freshest ideas. This book:

- grounds the reader in the foundations of cultural studies and cultural theory: language and semiology, ideology and power, mass and popular culture;

- analyzes the central problems: identity, body, economy, globalization and empire;

- introduces the latest developments on materiality, agency, technology and nature.

Culture and Society is an invaluable guide for students navigating the dynamic debates and intellectual challenges of cultural studies. Its breadth and unparallelled coverage of cutting-edge theory will also ensure that it is read by anyone interested in questions of materiality and culture.

`Too often cultural studies discourse seems cut off from wider developments in social theory. As a sociologist with a strong cultural studies sensibility, David Oswell is ideally placed to put this right. Through a series of well-judged and historically nuanced readings of cultural, social theory and critical philosophy, this book provides just the bridge between cultural studies and wider debates that we need' - Nick Couldry, Redaer in Media, Communications and Culture, London School of Economics and Political Science


 
Introduction: From the Beginning
 
Semiosis: From Representation to Translation
 
Power: From Ideology to Government
 
Popular Culture: From People to Multitude
 
Identity: Between Subject and Object
 
Body: Between Nature and Technology
 
Economy: Between Structure and Network
 
World: Between Globe and Empire
 
Ethics: By Way of a Conclusion

Too often cultural studies discourse seems cut off from wider developments in social theory. As a sociologist with a strong cultural studies sensibility, David Oswell is ideally placed to put this right. Through a series of well-judged and historically nuanced readings of cultural, social theory and critical philosophy, this book provides just the bridge between cultural studies and wider debates that we need
Nick Couldry
Redaer in Media, Communications and Culture, London School of Economics and Political Science


This book is an addition to the burgeoning field of Cultural Studies and is a useful companion volume to what Oswell elegantly describes as ‘a book in a sea of other books and writings about culture’. Nevertheless, it is a useful guide where Oswell manages to decant sophisticated concepts and revisit the tropes in an imag-inative and engaging way, which should appeal to a wide readership
Sociology



Duplicative of the textbook Cultural Studies by Chris Barker, which was adopted, but at a less accessible level for beginning undergraduate students.

Professor Michael Griffin
Humanities & Media & Cultural Studies, Macalester College
September 28, 2011

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter One PDF

Chapter Two PDF


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