Page 106 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

HEBDIGE, DICK (1951– )

• Associated concepts Constructionism, epistemology, foundationalism (anti-),
multiple identities, post-feminism, post-humanism.
• Tradition(s) Cultural studies, Marxism, postmodernism, poststructuralism.
• Reading Haraway, D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of 83
Nature. London: Free Association Books.

Hartley, John (1948– ) John Hartley was born in London (UK) and educated at the
University of Wales and at Murdoch University (Australia). He is currently a
professor and Dean of the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of
Technology, Australia. He was amongst the pioneer writers in cultural studies to
explore the texts and institutions of television from a cultural perspective using the
tools of semiotics. He has written widely on the themes of media, popular culture,
democracy and modernity with a particular interest in journalism. He is the founder
of the International Journal of Cultural Studies.
• Associated concepts Popular culture, reading, resistance, semiotics, television,
text.
• Tradition(s) Cultural studies, Marxism, poststructuralism, structuralism.
• Reading Hartley, J. (1992) Tele-ology: Studies in Television. London: Routledge.

Harvey, David (1935– ) British-born Harvey has worked as a professor at Johns
Hopkins University (USA) and at Oxford University (UK). He is one of the leading
exponents of a Marxist-inspired cultural geography and the revival of interest in
issues of space and place. In Harvey’s account, postmodernism is not primarily an
epistemological condition or an aesthetic trend but a social and spatial condition
that results from crucial changes at the level of political economy. As described by
Harvey, a crisis of overproduction within Fordism, sparked by the 1973 oil crisis,
prompted the development of more flexible production techniques involving new
technology, the reorganization of labour and a speed-up of production/
consumption turnover times. Harvey associates this move towards post-Fordism
with the postmodernization of culture and in particular with forms of urban design
and culture promoted by the ‘new cultural intermediaries’.
• Associated concepts Globalization, place, political economy, post-Fordism,
space, time–space geography.
• Tradition(s) Cultural studies, Marxism, poststructuralism.
• Reading Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Hebdige,Dick (1951– ) Hebdige’s use of semiotic theory to investigate youth cultures
in Britain in the 1970s formed an important part of the first wave of cultural studies
as it developed within the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.
Here Hebdige explored the idea of style in relation to spectacular youth subcultures
on the level of the autonomous play of signifiers and in doing so asserted the
specificity of the cultural. For Hebdige, style is a signifying practice that can act as
a form of semiotic resistance to the dominant order. Hebdige is currently Director
of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at the University of California, Santa
Barbara and has continued publishing articles on music, cultural studies, art and