Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This is an indispensable guide to the changing meanings and issues in Cultural Studies and, more widely, in the study of culture. It contains over 300 entries on key terms, presenting cultural theory as a continuing set of debates that challenge received attitudes and redefine current issues in a productive way. Fields covered include feminism, marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, poststructuralism, discourse, postmodernism, postcolonialism, literary criticism and aesthetic theory, film, media and popular culture, sociology of culture, and information theory.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Appealing to the tradition established by Raymond Williams's Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (rev. ed., 1983), Brooker (Neme University College, UK) offers what is, for all practical purposes, a glossary of cultural studies. A brief introduction describes the scope of the volume by arguing the place of cultural studies, broadly defined, in the post-60s theory boom. The 300 amply cross-referenced entries treat concepts only (no proper names, events, works, or movements) and cover between a couple paragraphs and a page, with longer entries running two pages. A cumulative bibliography of about 700 books, articles, and essays concludes the volume. The text benefits from having been written by one hand in clear, concise, intelligent prose. Brooker, an anthologist of cultural studies and literary theory, teaches theoretical terms through commentary and argument that elucidate their origins, inflections, and elaboration, explaining how the need for them arises and how they relate to each other. Michael Payne's excellent, more expansive Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory (CH, Jul'96), Jeremy Hawthorn's fine Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory (3rd ed., CH, Oct'98), which offers somewhat less discussion, and many "theory" glossaries for media, feminist, and literary studies are already on the shelves, but Brooker deserves a place among them. R. H. Kieft Haverford College