Page 10 - Contemporary Cultural Theory

Introduction

The rise of cultural theory

Media and cultural studies have emerged as one of the more significant
academic growth industries over the past quarter of a century, and
more especially so during the past decade. In many universities, both
“new” and “old”, there are now separate courses or departments
explicitly designated as such. Probably the best known is the Department
of Cultural Studies, a successor institution to the earlier, highly respected
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, at the “old” University of
Birmingham. The Birmingham department teaches courses at both
graduate and undergraduate levels, actively promotes research in the
field, and since 1991 has also published the annual journal, Cultural
Studies from Birmingham. One could almost as easily cite the School
of Communication Studies at the “new” Westminster University,
however: it too teaches comprehensive programmes in media studies,
it houses a research centre for communication and information studies,
and publishes one of the leading journals in the area, Media, Culture
and Society. Even where such institutional autonomy doesn’t formally
exist, the subject is still often taught, but as a part either of sociology
or of “English”. The new Teesside University, for example, provides
a home both for cultural studies and for Theory, Culture and Society,
again a leading journal in the field, in its School of Health, Policy and
Social Studies. Cultural studies remains similarly indebted to sociology
at the old University of Lancaster. But at both the old University of
Southampton and the new Manchester Metropolitan University, the
subject is effectively incorporated into “English studies”. Elsewhere,
it may appear as an adjunct to anthropology or to the visual arts: at
the University of Leeds, for example, the Centre for Cultural Studies
is actually attached to the Department of Fine Art. There are learned
journals and learned societies devoted to the subject, both in Britain
and overseas. There is even an international journal, Cultural Studies,
with editorial groups in Britain, the United Statesand Australia, which

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