Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction (10th edition)
by John Storey · Routledge
Canonical map of the field and natural starting point: standard university textbook surveying the major theoretical approaches to popular culture: culture-and-civilisation tradition, culturalism, Marxisms and the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, structuralism, Gramscian hegemony, feminisms, race, postmodernism and fandom. The 2024 edition adds a chapter on culture and nature.
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Free online text of most of the chapter from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) in which Adorno and Horkheimer argue that film, radio and popular music are produced industrially, standardize taste, and secure conformity: the classic pessimistic position later cultural studies argues against.
Mythologies: The Complete Edition
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