Cultural studies researchers often concentrate on how a
particular phenomenon relates to matters of ideology, race, social
class, and/or gender.
The term was coined by Stuart
Hall and Dick
Hebdige in 1964 when they founded the Birmingham Centre
for Contemporary Cultural Studies.
Cultural studies concerns itself with the meaning and practices of everyday life.
Cultural practices comprise the ways people do particular things (such as
watching television, or eating out) in a given culture. In any given practice,
people use various objects (such as iPods or handguns).
Hence, this field studies the meanings and uses people attribute to various
objects and practices. Recently, as capitalism has spread throughout the world (a process called globalization),
cultural studies has begun to critique local and global forms of resistance to
Western hegemony.
In a loosely related but separate usage, the phrase cultural studies sometimes serves as a rough synonym for area
studies, as a general term referring to the academic study of particular
cultures in departments and programs such as Islamic
studies, Asian
studies, African
American studies, African
studies, German
studies, et al.
Cultural studies -
Wikipedia |
