An Introduction to Cultural Studies

Cultural Studies has fascinated academics and students around the globe with its deft application of complex theories to everyday life. A discipline between disciplines, it makes the academic popular and the popular, academic. Cultural Studies is concerned with the social and cultural construction of meanings, and investigates how power relations govern these meanings.

This lucid introduction explains the theory and practice of Cultural Studies with the help of detailed cultural analyses. The first of its two parts discusses the contexts in which Cultural Studies evolved, and outlines the major theories it draws on - structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, Marxism, postmodernism, feminism, queer theory and postcolonial theory. The second part of the book applies the methods of Cultural Studies to familiar aspects of everyday life, and contains a set of case studies in the cultures of shopping, memory and impression management. Examples range from shopping malls and online shopping through memory culture projects and selfies.

An Introduction to Cultural Studies will make the subject accessible to students and help researchers sharpen their tools of enquiry and analysis.