Suchergebnisse

This article is not so much concerned with the history of cultural studies as with the way in which aspects of its history are used in forming a particular type of cultural studies intellectual, one for whom ethics is subsumed into a morality directed to the necessity of engaging in a politics of empowerment. The article's concern, this is to say, is to problematise the taken-for-grantedness of this type of intellectual, something it seeks to do through a genealogy (in something like the Foucaultian sense of that term), or at least the outline of a genealogy.

After suggesting that Stephen Turner's work is characterized by a determination to offer viable alternatives to blockages generated by adherence to dogmas, particularly those generated by adherence to Kantian metaphysics, this review article concentrates on his recent book Explaining the Normative. The article sets out the book's descriptions of a wide variety of positions, 'each of which accounts for a different kind of normativity'. Perhaps the only common feature of these positions is the idea of 'the necessity or indispensability of the normative'. Turner challenges the normativists' certainty, employing a range of argumentative strategies which add up to the project of explaining the normative. The article seeks to show how Turner goes about this project and to show that he succeeds in his quest to undermine the normativists' claim that the normative itself cannot be explained. Ultimately, Turner is able to say to them, politely but firmly, 'Yes it can'.

Battered and bruised by injuries (often self-inflicted) sustained in the first half of the twentieth century since 1950 sociology in Australia has fought its way back into the academic mainstream. This has not been easy; its fortunes seem forever mixed - good in some places and dismal in others. But it has proved itself resilient, it is a survivor.

Sociology in Australia was battered and bruised by the injuries it sustained in the first half of the twentieth century. Most of these were self-inflicted. Through arrogance and overreach its early advocates ruined its chances, such that by the 1930s sociology had been rejected as a distinctive discipline by the only two universities which were prepared to give it a chance, Melbourne and Sydney. But since 1950 the discipline has fought its way back into the academic mainstream and now has a place in most of the nation's universities. This has not been easy; its fortunes seem forever mixed. It has never flourished in all states and territories at the same time and even while it is now on the rise in places like the University of Sydney it is relatively weak at some of its former strongholds in the second tier universities. Despite these mixed fortunes, the discipline has proved itself a survivor.

Understanding Culture offers an accessible and comprehensive overview of the field of cultural studies whilst also proposing a different way of `doing' cultural studies. It focuses on the ways in which cultural objects and practices serve as both a means of ordering people's lives and as markers of that ordering