American Cultural Studies

This Reader is an exciting panorama of over forty examples of the best writing in American Cultural Studies. It introduces vital concepts, arguments, theories, and disciplinary debates. Ranging from Black Power to social science, cyberdemocracy to transvestism, the Reader captures the ideas, critique and intellectual currents that stream through American public life. American Cultural Studies: A Reader shows how the burgeoning field of Cultural Studies has been taken up and developed in the United States. The book is a panorama of great writing and powerful ideas illustrating a particularly American response to questions of power and identity in the politics of culture. More than forty selections from key figures in the 'New Journalism', cultural theory, the social sciences, humanities, and visual arts are gathered together in seven sections, each one introduced by helpful contextualising notes. The book also includes illustrations that serve to extend the themes of each section in visual terms. An introductory chapter explains the editorial selection and offers a new account of Cultural Studies and American Studies in relation to American culture. The Epilogue then goes on to suggest new ways of doing Cultural Studies, and of thinking about America in particular, via the Internet.