This second edition of the renowned Cultural Theory provides a systematic and accessible introduction to cultural theory, encapsulating a usually complex field in a concise and balanced overview. This fully revised and expanded second edition provides a comprehensive tour of the major figures, themes, and debates in cultural theory, from Durkheim and Weber through to Foucault and Butler, and from charisma to consumption, but also introduces entirely new chapters on race and gender theory, and the body. Other new material includes treatments of thinkers such as Nietzsche, DuBois, and Eagleton, and considers important contemporary themes, including virtual reality and cosmopolitanism. Internationally respected by students and teachers alike, the first edition of Cultural Theory has been translated into several languages and became legendary on campuses worldwide. This new, restructured edition, packed with special features for students and accompanied by a website, promises to be the most authoritative text of its kind.

Leseprobe

Preface to the First Edition: About this Book. Preface to the Second Edition. Acknowledgments. Introduction: What is Culture? What is Cultural Theory?. 1 Culture in Classical Social Theory. 2 Culture and Social Integration in the Work of Talcott Parsons. 3 Culture as Ideology in Western Marxism. 4 Culture as Action in Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenology, and Ethnomethodology. 5 The Durkheimians: Ritual, Classification, and the Sacred. 6 Structuralism and the Semiotic Analysis of Culture. 7 The Poststructural Turn. 8 Culture, Structure, and Agency: Three Attempts at Synthesis. 9 British Cultural Studies. 10 The Production and Reception of Culture. 11 Culture as Text: Narrative and Hermeneutics. 12 Psychoanalytic Approaches to Culture and the Self. 13 The Cultural Analysis of Postmodernism and Postmodernity. 14 Postmodern and Poststructural Critical Theory. 15 Cultural Theories of Race and Gender. 16 The Body in Cultural Theory. References. Index