Cultural Studies is a multidisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture. It also includes popular culture and its historical foundations. It investigates how cultural practices relate to more comprehensive systems of power. In culture studies, power is associated with, or operating through, social phenomena. These include:
The ideology of a Culture
Class structures in the Society.
National formations.
Ethnicity.
Sexual orientation.
Gender studies.
Generation.
British Marxist academics initially developed cultural studies in the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Cultural studies combine a variety of politically engaged critical approaches drawn, including:
Semiotics,
Marxism,
Feminist Theory,
Ethnography,
Post-structuralism,
Postcolonialism,
Social Theory,
Political Theory and its economy,
History and philosophy,
Literary Theory,
Media theory and studies like film/video studies,
Communication studies,
Translation studies,
The study of cultural phenomena in different societies and historical periods is achieved through museum studies and art history/criticism. The movement has generated critical theories of cultural hegemony and agency. The cultural forces related to and processes of globalization. Dennis Dworkin writes about "a critical moment" at the beginning of cultural studies. Richard Hoggart introduced the term in 1964. Hoggart established the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS). CCCS is situated at the University of Birmingham. It is well known as the "Birmingham School" of cultural studies. Hoggart was assigned as his assistant Stuart Hall, who became director of CCCS in 1968. CCCS initially became involved with the structuralism of Louis Althusser.
CCCS, in the 1970s, turned decisively toward Antonio Gramsci. The theorists who developed British Cultural Studies are:
Richard Hoggart,
E. P. Thompson,
Raymond Williams,
Stuart Hall,
Paul Willis,
Angela McRobbie,
Paul Gilroy,
David Morley,
Charlotte Brunsdon,
Richard Dyer, and others.
Cultural studies journals published in Asia include Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Two significant institutional spaces for Cultural Studies in India are:
The Centre for Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore.
The Department of Cultural Studies at The English and Foreign Languages and the University of Hyderabad.
Marxism has been a significant influence on cultural studies. Terry Eagleton does not wholly oppose cultural studies, but he criticizes them. Eagleton sees its strengths and weaknesses in books such as After Theory (2003). Pierre Bourdieu's work makes innovative use of statistics and in-depth interviews.
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