An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture

In this second edition of his successful introduction to cultural theory and popular culture, John Storey has revised the text throughout. As before, the book presents a clear and critical survey of the competing theories of and various approaches to popular culture. In addition to the theoretical positions discussed in the first edition -- the "culture and civilization" tradition, the American "mass culture" debate, culturalism, structuralism/post-structuralism, and postmodernism -- there are new sections on popular culture and the carnivalesque, and on postmodernism and the pluralism of value. Five of the earlier sections have been extended, with new material on neo-Gramscian cultural studies, popular film, cine-psychoanalysis and cultural studies, feminism as reading, postmodernism in the 1960s, and the cultural field. Retaining the accessible approach of the first edition, and using up-to-date examples from popular culture texts, this new edition is essential for those who study and teach cultural theory and popular culture.