WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES: A Reader

This book is an ideal foundation for students new to cultural studies. The essays are collected in chronological order to allow the reader to map the development of the field. Together the essays provide a fascinating perspective on the past, present and possible future of cultural studies.

This book is not a cultural studies reader. That is, it is not a collection of essays from and about cultural studies, demonstrating the range, the diversity and the infectious excitement of the field. Instead it is an introduction to cultural studies through a series of attempts to define cultural studies. It brings together for the first time a group of essays from many of the leading scholars in the field which attempt, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, to define the subject of cultural studies. The title is intended to be taken quite literally: ‘What is cultural studies?’ Definitions range from the explicit to the implicit, from historical cartographies of its past to claims made on its future.
—John Storey